Jerusalem
by Cytania
Summary: Novella. The sixth Doctor and Peri find evil in the Derbyshire hills.


**Jerusalem**

Chapter 1 - Beginnings

Grant held the ancient book with both hands. Its pages felt old and heavy, charged with the neglect of ages. It was almost as if the book itself were alive, speaking to him. Hinting at hidden depths and forbidden pathways that his tutors would never allow him to walk down. He started to read;

'The Dark Powers have always existed, deep in the secret pre-history of the Universe, but it was with the coming of the Time Lords that they took on distinct forms, with names such as Fenric or the self styled 'Gods Of Ragnarok'. Whatever these lesser creatures called themselves they are but a facet of the great wellspring of evil that are the Dark Powers. Contact with the Dark Powers is all too easy for the untrained mind who is aware of their existence and it is for this reason that novitiates undergo long arduous training and the knowledge of the Dark Powers is forbidden. The Dark Powers wait at the corners of reality, testing the cracks in space-time, looking for a point of entry. The minds of the foolish are ever their prey.'

He started to feel an uneasy sensation as if he was being watched, as if someone else were in the locked cell with him. Yet he knew this could not be the case. As he listened he thought he could hear something in the darkness; a hissing, gurgling sound. He stood up and went towards the door and the lights but they were not there. He moved forwards. His tiny novices cell appeared to have expanded off into dark corners. Gripping the light he moved towards the sound. It was a low gasping shiver that unsettled him with it's familiarity and it's alieness. He walked forward, the small pool of light from his lamp lost in the dark recesses of wherever he was. As he advance he started to make out something ahead and he held his lamp out high as he approached. There in front of him was a figure sat on a chair wearing novices robes but the silhouette did not move or show any sign of noticing him, it just continued it's dry rasping rictus. He reached forward to see who the silent person was when he recognised the face he saw. It was the same face he saw every day in the shaving mirror. It was himself. But here he was a drooling idiot his eyes rolled upward and the book lying at his feet. It was then that Grant first felt the claws of the Dark Powers upon his mind, pulling him down into the inevitable depths of madness.

* * *

'...and that's how they found him, entirely gone, dribbling blood with that damn stolen text hanging from one hand, had to prise it out of his fingers...'

'Well I'd heard he'd eaten the book, swallowed several pages from it, so who knows what he was reading.'

'With that book there's no doubt it concerns the Dark Powers.' 

'The Dark Powers, Engin? Legendary energy forces from before Gallifrey's civilised history?'

'Quite so, young minds are fascinated by them, that's why the book was put in the Chancellor's private collection.' 

'But the Chancellor never reads!'

'Quite so, that is why the book was put in the Chancellor's private collection.'

'But being an assistant at the library Grant was able to gain access to this thing.'

'Yes, that's how it must have been.'

'And now he's going to spend the rest of his life in a vegetative state, poor chap.'

'Did I say that? Oh no my dear Castellan, Grant is young and he's making an excellent recovery.'

'Oh, that's even worse then, poor sod, the Chancellor will kick him into orbit, metaphorically speaking.'

'Oh I expect he'll just get the usual punishment.'

'The usual? Ah yes, I expect so, the usual punishment' 

* * *

Burton stood in front of the small fire in the chilly office and looked out across the high moor. Mist roiling round the granite rocks, silent but for the occasional bleating sheep. Dr. Jacoby came in.

'Mr. Burton I am getting quite tired of these endless visits from yourself and your agents,' the good doctor puffed indignantly. 'Miss Farnsworth has been making steady progress but is being persecuted by your legal firm.'

'I merely wish to assess her condition as it applies to the family estates,' replied Burton.

'You are simply seeking to have the poor woman declare clinically insane so that your client, her loathsome brother in London can take control of the considerable fortune she has inherited.' 

'That may or may not be so but I do believe I have the right to see Rachel Farnsworth and ascertain her state of mind myself.' 

'Very well, but I warn you do not expect too much of her.' 

'Come now Jacoby,' said Burton. 'We both know she is not going to recover from such an acute schizophrenic episode. Mania followed by lengthy catatonia, it's hardly promising.' 

'Very well,' conceded Dr. Jacoby. 'Let me show you down.'

The two gentlemen descended from the office down a cast iron stairwell that took them down to an open hallway which reverberated with the sharp, sad sounds of the mentally ill. In the central courtyard they passed a patient receiving hydrotherapy. The man tugged at the leather restraints as water gushed out of a circular head piece coursing down into the white tiled cubicle. Burton was glad when they passed through an iron door and were cut off from the madman's screams. As they approached the cell, which Burton knew from previous visits, housed the poor bedraggled specimen that currently owned the Farnsworth estates, Jacoby was approached by a warder, concern showing across his face.

'Dr. Jacoby! Are you here to see Rachel?' the orderly said.

'I am, is there anything wrong with her?' he looked concerned.

'Why no doctor, Rachel is perfectly fine sir,' he replied a little taken aback.

Burton couldn't say he was surprised, he'd seen this many times before; a provincial doctor with dwindling prospects takes on responsibility for the local asylum and then has to face up to the fact that there is no hope of a cure and what's more, there's no money in mad folks. Then in steps a rich patient, handsomely supported and he seeks to keep the fees coming in even though the witch is patently incurable. The last time Burton had visited she'd been unable to speak her name and looked into the corner of her cell whenever spoken to. He knew the orderlies cleaned her up before visits but her hair was always knotted and matted, testifying to how difficult she was to handle. Today would be the day of reckoning.

* * *

When Jacoby entered the cell he was surprised not to find Rachel crouched in the corner she always sat in but sitting upright on the small bed.

'Hello Doctor Jacoby, it's nice to see you,' she spoke! In a soft voice, no less beautiful for having not been used for sixteen months. 'Is that Mr.Burton I see in the doorway?' 

Jacoby's heart leapt, she was not only responding to the world but actually expressing an interest in others, 'Yes Rachel he's here to see you.'

'Good evening Miss Farnsworth,' said Burton, the surprise showing on his face.

'Evening?' said Rachel. 'I do believe you are testing me Mr. Burton, for it is obviously morning.'

Burton coughed, 'I'm sorry, my mistake. I was inquiring when you would be well enough to return to Farnsworth Hall?' Jacoby had to admire the lawyer's adaptiveness. 

'Very soon but I will need some clothes to travel in and,' she looked embarrassed. 'Do you have a proper comb anywhere I must get my hair in order.'

'Orderly would you get Miss Farnsworth's belongings please, oh, and a comb, if one can be found.'

'I'm sure we can to make travel arrangements for you,' said Burton. Jacoby could see the vigour in his gaze looking for any sign of madness in her countenance.

'If you would be so kind, thank you.' Her manners were impeccable and Jacoby marveled at the charming woman who had suddenly emerged from behind the mask of dementia that had been the Rachel Farnsworth he'd known for nearly two years. He suddenly became aware of the dingy cell and what an unacceptable place for a lady of breeding it was.

'Orderly, would you show Miss Farnsworth up to my office please.'

'Thank you Dr. Jacoby,' she replied with obvious gratitude. 

He was left with Burton in the empty room.

'So you've had a miracle recovery Jacoby,' said Burton. 'I'm impressed. If only you could do this for every poor soul in here.'

'Such cases are rare,' he replied. 'But I take them as a sign of God's grace.' Although he had no idea how the change had taken place.

'I shall be keeping a close eye on her Jacoby. The journey back is a long one and any new medication you have got her on will not last forever.'

'I should be more concerned to make sure she does not seek to change her legal representation, Mr. Burton.'

He did believe he had gotten the better of Mr. Burton at last and together they went upstairs to formalise one of the few satisfactory discharge reports to be issued from the Jerusalem Hospital.

* * *

Grant stood over the stone cattle trough and gazed down at his reflection in the water. This was not the face he had grown used to, the face that had grown old and familiar at the academy. The face that had been good ole' Grant, the permanent student, the bastion of the Citadel library, always under Engin's feet, eyes down at a console. It was the face of a stranger. Long nose, bright eyes, long flowing hair in a bronze auburn shade, and a thin chin. Not bad considering it had been picked by the Time Lords, not bad at all as compulsory face jobs went.

He looked back at the standing stone behind him. Cattle were already rubbing up against it like it had been there for years. Dumb beasts unaware that this was a Tardis. But that was about all he did know himself, he struggled to remember all the lore he had gained in his life on Gallifrey. It wasn't there. The reassuring pattern of knowledge was gone. Blocked from his grasp by a wall of stoney nothingness. As he cursed the High Council and all they stood for the tall slice of limestone started to fade and diminish with a faint rustle of white noise. He couldn't be sure if it was a change by the chameleon circuits to counter the attention of the cows or a recall signal summoning the Tardis back to base and out of his influence. Either way he would require a foothold on this world before he could work on the question.

He went around the trough and found the walls of the field. They were constructed from loose pieces of limestone stacked in an arrangement that looked untidy yet had more strength than any random piling. He climbed over and found his new body full of supple energy. On the other side was a narrow country road and he followed it down the hill in the mist. After a couple of hundred yards he came to a cross-roads and as he rested there he heard the sound of horses and a carriage of some kind. That narrowed the Earth era down somewhat but also made the level of technology likely to be depressingly basic. As he listened the carriage came into sight, coming out of the mist close to his right. The two chestnut mare's were being drawn to a halt and on top the driver pulled up by him. The dark figure looked down.

'The people round here say you'll meet the devil at a cross-roads,' said a light feminine voice.

'Do they? I was looking for a lift myself. Can you help me?' he asked.

'I certainly can Mister Grant.' The driver offered a hand and he mounted the small trap unsteadily. He could now get a good look at her and found himself sitting next to a handsome young lady. She had dark eyes and a pale round face. Her hair was done back in a net to accommodate a horseman's hat and she had dressed heavily in tweeds against the cold. He shivered slightly in the light tunic he wore and didn't argue when she cracked the reigns and sent the horses cantering off into the mist. He was so grateful for the timely assistance he forgot to ask how she knew his name.

'Let me introduce myself,' she said. 'I am Rachel Farnsworth.'

Chapter 2 - Strangers

Peri sat in the white room. The room she had to call her own, although it bore the traces of previous occupants, none of them spoke of a settled life there. Dresses, leggings, tiaras, tank-tops they all said this was a room where sets of clothes were changed and sleep was gained. Nothing more. The Tardis wasn't a home to anyone except the Doctor and he wasn't always around. At present Peri was quite glad of this. She didn't think she could stand anymore of his mood swings, his sudden fads and his dramatic outbursts. This wasn't the young man who'd whisked her away from Lanzarote. He had been a soft presence, a beige fringe with an old soul. Now she was stuck with a stormy sea of a Time Lord and she was fed up with being tossed around like a cork. She stood up and headed back to the console room.

As Peri walked in she found a tall man standing with his back to her.

'Doctor? Is that you?'

'Certainly not, my dear, and you certainly are not him.' The figure turned to reveal a severe old man standing in a long dark morning suit.

'I'm sorry, but what with the regeneration and everything, he's been changing quite a lot.' A peculiar look from the strange man. 'You know clothes, hats, hair, face that sort of thing.'

'I do indeed,' said the stranger. 'But I'm afraid I'm going to have to impose upon him even at this early stage in his regeneration. This is a matter of great import!'

'Did all Time Lords speak like this?' thought Peri. Their language at once contracted and yet over-elaborate. The last Doctor had said what he meant, when he said anything at all. A quiet one, something that could not be said of the broad frame that came through the doors behind her.

'What the devil are you doing here?' The Doctor asked the question with immediate familiarity, as if he knew the strange old man.

'I'm here with a request,' he replied.

'Oh,' said the Doctor. 'Not a mission or a warning from the High Council then?'

'No I am here of my own account.'

Rallying the Doctor walked over, 'Let me introduce Miss Perpeguilliam Brown, Peri for short. Peri this is Kariston, one of the most powerful members of the Time Lord High Council. An old acquaintance wily enough to enter unannounced!' The last point was almost spat out.

'Thank you Doctor. I'll take that as a compliment, but I'm afraid technology has moved on a lot since the days of the Type 40.'

'He means the Tardis Peri.'

Peri was getting tired of being treated like an idiot. 'And you told me the Tardis was impregnable,' she said.

'Well it is, except to top-rank Time Lords, Mandragora Helix Energy, Osirians, Vardans' he tailed off.

'Doctor we have an urgent matter,' Kariston asserted himself. The Doctor looked rebellious.

'It concerns young Grant.'

The Doctor looked up, interest showing across his broad face. 'Grant? Not that young probationer who blew up the Citadel privy?'

'It was the left-wing of the Academy actually, but he has come along way since then,' said Kariston. 'He became something of a bright spark, a strong individual until he fell from grace that is.'

'Doesn't surprise me in the slightest', said the Doctor smugly, 'Gallifrey is such a claustrophobic place. All that plotting and scheming..'

He was sharply cut off by Kariston, 'Grant was found reading the Panopticon manuscripts, he had taken them from the Citadel library without authorisation.'

'So he gets a fine for stealing a library book then?' said Peri sarcastically.

'He is in far more trouble than that.' replied Kariston. 

'The Panopticon manuscripts?' said the Doctor. 'Aren't they forbidden by Rassilon's express orders?'

'They are indeed and reading them carries a mandatory punishmen,' Kariston said. 'One which you Doctor are already familiar with.'

'Not being spanked on the Castellan's knee with a willow branch?'

'No Doctor,' frowned Kariston. 'Exile to Earth, involuntary regeneration and mental excision of all Tardis-related knowledge.'

'That does sound familiar. I can tell the Gallifreyan judicial system is as creative as ever,' said the Doctor. 'Which time period?'

'The beginning of the twentieth century. A primitive time when science and technology are only just beginning to bear fruit,' said Kariston.

'He has a Tardis?'

'Yes a type 50 with all the latest upgrades.'

'So why can't this guy just time-travel away from Earth?' blustered Peri.

'They interfere with your mind, Peri,' said the Doctor looking ruefully at Kariston. 'They take all your hard won knowledge and lock it away from you. It's one of the most flagrant abuses of power I have ever known.' The Doctor burned with indignant rage.

'We have reason to believe Grant will breach the bounds we have set Doctor,' said Grant. 'Somehow within eighteen months of his arrival a major aneurysm occurs in the time continuum.'

'A what?' said Peri.

'A time aneurysm, a disruption of the natural contours of the timelines,' said the Doctor. 'How big is it?, what type?'

'Neither a chronic hysteresis Doctor, nor just a blip,' said Kariston. 'But it does equate to massive loss of life across Western Europe and disruption of history on a tremendous scale.'

'How can one man cause all that?' asked Peri.

'That is for you and the Doctor to find out,' said Kariston.

'I'm not sure he'll take kindly to being preached to by Time Lords,' said the Doctor.

'Which is why I'd like you to have a word with him. As an ex-exile yourself, so to speak, I'd like you to counsel him,' replied Kariston.

'Like an old lag showing the new convict the ropes. One hapless renegade to another' said the Doctor tentatively.

The Doctor may have thought he looked like he was considering whether to acquiesce to Kariston's request and waste his precious time, but Peri knew straight away that they were headed towards Earth and a meeting with this dangerous exile.

* * *

William hid behind the row of vats, and wondered why he was thinking of newly mown hay after rain. That made him think of Grandpa Arthurs and his scythe, cutting grass in the meadow, when he was a boy, before he'd come to work at the Mill. William knew he wasn't meant to be here, the old dye works were off limits but he'd seen movements in the windows, dark shapes moving in the dim lighting.

Now he could hear the sounds of men working quietly in the near darkness. William had got in through the broken window round the back. He was naturally inquisitive but told himself that the Union would be interested in any secret labour that was going on after hours. The sound carried on unceasingly, never once did he hear the sound of men talking or even cough though there was an acrid chemical smell all about.

William ventured forward, keeping low to avoid being seen he scuttled over to the heavy pillar which supported the upper decks. From there he got as clear a view of the work going on as could be had by the dim light provided by the working furnaces. What kind of men would work in such poor illumination? He could see a dozen figures labouring at the dye plant, some were lifting barrels or decanting their contents. Others were mixing vats of fuming liquid. At the end of it all a small team were bottling the dye, or whatever it was, into dark metal cylinders and packing them carefully into straw filled crates. The strange men moved slowly without stopping or saying a word to each other. He could not see their faces but he noticed how tall they were, each stranger must have been over six foot. How could men like this go unnoticed in Farnsworth or Netherworth? They wore blocky tunics that didn't hang right and reminded William of the tin soldiers bought for children at Christmas.

Unnerved William turned to go back and fetch help when he backed into a crate in the gloom. There was a crash as one of the flasks fell to the floor and cracked. A thin vapour escaped and William gagged. It was the moist grass smell again and to his alarm the sound of work stopped. There was no cry of alarm the strangers just put down their tasks and orientated on him. He still could not make out their faces. They appeared to have blank heads like salt-dough dollies or gingerbread men.

William ran his breath rattling in his throat. As he rounded the vats he skidded into one of the men. It was dark and he couldn't see the worker he'd struck he felt the damp cling of dug earth. The man was cold and slow to react to his impact. Any normal man would have grabbed him while he floundered in disarray and he felt the creature react, it's dull reflexes moving slow, arms like rotten tree trunks, but William was off it and out of there before you could say 'Sweet Jesus'. He was up the sill, through the window and running into the night.

* * *

Mrs. Arthurs put another lump of coal on top of the fire although she knew it didn't need it. William was late home from the mill tonight and she hoped he hadn't been in the Black Lion drinking again. It was with relief then that she heard his feet coming down the lane. At a run though, as if the hounds of hell were after him. Suddenly he was at the door causing it to bang on the latch.

'William is that you?' she asked, for the boy did not come in. 'William?'

She got up over-quickly and winced at the back-pain but went straight to the door. Lifting the latch she found William lying in the doorway. His torso fell on top the threshold and his breath rasped in and out like an old man with the croup. She turned him on his side and saw his wild eyes and blisters. She called for his brother to fetch the doctor but she already knew she had lost another son to the mill.

There was nothing but tears thereafter.

Chapter 3 - Introductions

William came to on a low bed, no more than a straw mattress on boards. Looking up he saw peeling paint on rotting plaster. There was a heavy iron door to one side and a tiny excuse of a window on the other. He was in some kind of prison cell. He tried the door but as he suspected it was locked. He tried to call for help but his voice was absent. He felt his mouth and nose. They were ridged with painful ulcers and he pulled his hand away. Looking out of the grill in the cell door he tried to attract somebody's attention but as he did so he caught sight of something. It was the same lumbering gait he had seen at the mill. He drew back and heard the dull footsteps go past, regular and monotonous as machinery.

* * *

There was a sound like waves crashing on a beach or a storm wind roaring across a tin roof. As the noise died away a blue Police Box was now present at the side of the road, in a natural clearing where it seemed quite in keeping with the place. Peri stepped out gingerly although the Doctor had assured her that the co-ordinates had been laid in by Kariston. As he had promised this was England, South Derbyshire to be precise, in the early 1900s, the year hadn't been specified. Peri hardly cared, she was immediately examining the profusion of wildflowers that flourished around the drystone walling that stretched off down the lane. Coltsfoot, common plantain, celendine, corn-cockle, rosebay willow-herb; a variety of grasses and flowers that she had never seen so abundantly before.

'Isn't it wonderful Doctor!' she said grabbing a daisy as she passed.

'If you say so Peri,' he replied.

'Oh come on Doctor, it's a gorgeous day!' 

'Which makes it all the more onerous to be delivering bad news!'

'I thought this Grant was a friend of yours.'

'He may have been, it was a very long time ago and Gallifrey has a habit of changing people.'

'Is that why you ran away?'

'Ran away? Ran away? I certainly did not run away. I had to leave under very particular circumstances.'

'Caught with your fingers in the petty cash box?'

'Certainly not, Peri, why do you have to reduce everything down to the level of a cheap melodrama?'

'I was only joking, there's no need to be so puffed up about it!'

'Puffed up, me? I'm too important to be considered puffed up. I'm on a mission and you're being flippant!'

'Well pardon me for existing, thank you very much'

They walked on in silence and Peri threw the wilting daisy in a ditch. As they approached a large mansion style house the sun went behind some clouds; Large anvil shaped rain clouds that told her the afternoon was over.

* * *

Farnsworth Hall came into sight and they crunched up the gravel drive up to the imposing front door. The Hall was either large for a vicarage or small for a mansion, either way it suggested that Grant had certainly found his feet in this time period and was not wanting for anything materially. At the door the Doctor gave a hearty knock on the lions head brass and waited. His call was answered by a stocky man with mutton-chop whiskers who obviously was the butler. The Doctor presented his card and assured the man that the master of the house would want to see him when he saw it.

* * *

Grant was down at the hanger when Pearson called, he'd had an electrical relay put in that rang a bell when a button was pressed. Pearson being somewhat old-fashioned, even for a human of this time period, thought of it as a superior form of servant's bell, although of course the connection was with electrical current down wires rather than mechanical movement. Grant allowed his gaze to shift from the burnished metal propellers and he carefully shifted the dust sheets back over the dark bulk of the craft. It looked like today wasn't going to be the day his creation flew. He carefully closed the iron framed door behind him and turned the key in the lock. He didn't want any intruders and it was obvious that someone had been using the woodland road recently. He made his way up the old stone steps and took in the last rays of the sun glittering on the lake before the solid clouds moved in completely on a chill Eastern wind.

Peri and the Doctor waited on the big stone doorstep. Peri wondered how the Doctor would take it if the butler came back and told them to go. She could imagine the incandescent rage and then the inevitable pique as he took it out on her in little verbal blows. Luckily the door opened again and they were show through into the house's study. It was a dark brown room and was cold at first while Pearson busied with the fire. The Doctor paced up and down, inwardly rehearsing some grand speech and Peri settled herself in the most comfortable looking of several rather grand looking chairs. Outside the sky was getting darker and Pearson switched the wall lights on with a click that echoed off the oak panelling. She could hear a different footstep coming up the passageway and braced herself for meeting Grant.

* * *

A tall young man entered the room. He had auburn hair that fell down he back of his collar in a slight wave and a fine face full of expression and beauty. He was slim without the gangly awkwardness of adolescence and he wore a pair of well-cut britches that met with a dark jacket and riding boots. Underneath a cream linen shirt revealed an elegant neck that rose to a handsome chin and sensuous lips. His eyes were dark blue and were the only trace of seriousness in him. Peri hadn't expected this. Was this another employee of Grant's?

'Doctor!'

'Grant! Is that you?'

'Yes I've regenerated, as I see you have too!'

'Several times!'

'And who is your companion?'

'May I present Miss Perpeguilliam Brown, Peri for short.'

Peri immediately resented the way the Doctor had pronounced her name so elaborately and made it's diminutive sound even more inadequate. She suddenly found herself short of a comeback and lost for the proper response to Grant. She smiled and he gallantly offered his hand, allowing her to shake her hello and even bob a sort of curtsy. His hand was warm and soft. She suddenly felt under-dressed and wished for something more elegant to wear and something clever to say.

'Well Doctor, what brings you here, I'm sure you don't make social calls and we mavericks rarely seek each other out, the galaxy is big enough for both of us after all.'

'It's a difficult matter Grant,' ventured the Doctor. 'I've been sent by one of the High Council to warn you'

'Warn me? As if stranding me on Earth and depriving my of my rightful mind isn't enough!'

'Yes, I know how it must feel,' said the Doctor. 'but they've seen worrying signs from this temporal vicinity.'

'Have they, well that's strange,' he said peering into the kindling fire. 'I'm sure it can't be anything I've done.' 

'Apparently it concerns the Dark Powers.'

'The Dark Powers? Why I haven't been touched by them since the day I picked up that damn book', said Grant agitated. 'I try to lead a simple life here, with the help of Rachel.'

'Rachel?' said Peri.

'My patron, Miss Farnsworth, you didn't think I owned all this?' he looked amused. 'We met on my arrival here, we had a common interest in the sciences and she offered me a place as her secretary.'

'That was lucky,' said the Doctor.

'My goodness, I haven't introduced you to her, Pearson would you fetch the mistress please?'

Pearson stepped out and the Doctor returned to his task, 'So if you aren't drawing on the Dark Powers who is?'

'I hadn't taken you for a religious man Doctor but I can assure you mister Grant's scientific enterprises are entirely within God's natural philosophy,' the voice was light but not flighty. Rachel Farnsworth stood in the door way dressed in a light linen dress that was at once informal and elegant. She had a subtle English rose beauty and long dark hair which she wore tied back.

'Enchanted to meet you Miss Farnsworth,' said the Doctor with a respect Peri wished he'd show her some time. 'But I'm afraid that storm clouds follow us here.'

As the Doctor spoke the weather outside opened up into a full down-pour and rain started to clatter against the window. Peri even fancied there were some hailstones. She decided to lighten things up a bit.

'You live in a lovely house Miss Farnsworth,' she ventured.

'Just Rachel if you please,' she replied graciously. 'I would show you the grounds but it looks like this storm will persist. Would you care to join mister Grant and myself for dinner?'

'Why it would be a pleasure,' said the Doctor.

Grant and Rachel left them alone while she briefed Pearson on the new arrangements. The Doctor had settled down in one of the leather armchairs and was brooding.

'Well I think I we've been sent on a wild goose chase, Gallifrey's time-radar is obviously out of whack,' she stated.

'Do you? Well, I must admit he's certainly not at all what I expected.'

'Me neither, he seems to have adjusted to this exile thing very well.'

'Too well, Peri. Far too well.'

'I bet you were crawling up the walls,' she giggled.

'Well, I had a lot to keep me busy, Autons, Axons, Daleks, the Master, you know the sort of thing.'

'What a delightful sound, you have an enchanting laugh Miss Brown!' said Grant coming softly up behind them, who knows how much he'd overheard. 'Would you care to join us next door?'

They crossed the corridor and found a lavish dining table dressed for an evening meal. Peri again wished for a change of clothes. Almost as if reading her mind Rachel offered the use of her wardrobe and took her upstairs to change for dinner. Peri found the Edwardian dresses difficult to get into but once on she found Rachel Farnsworth's size was a good match for hers and with careful adjustments she felt she would pass as a gentlewoman. Her pleated skirt and blue/green top hadn't been too shocking but she felt a relief at fitting in, synchronising with the spirit of the age.

* * *

They ate as the rain pattered against the glass panes of the french windows. Pearson waited on them, which felt quite odd to Peri however it soon became natural for him to refill her glass, his wife who was obviously the cook or housekeeper brought in the larger dishes. Dinner consisted of a soup course followed by a game dish and then a full meat course with fillet beef baked in pastry, the Doctor evidently appreciated this and it wasn't until after Port was being circulated by Pearson that he ventured back onto the reason they had been sent her.

'Can I ask if you've noticed anything strange occurring since you've been here?' the Doctor addressed Grant.

'Nothing in particular, the locals don't approve of Stevens and his new model linen mill and rave about a bogeymen on the hills. They've called it the Golem, a creature from Hebrew myth, I blame the cinematograph,' he replied with a laugh.

'Really?' said the Doctor.

'Yes indeed Doctor,' interrupted Rachel, her conversation had been sparse until now, 'Jerusalem has been quite filling up with cases' she was quite serious. 'They always rave about earth giants before the chest fever takes them.'

'Jerusalem?' said Peri. 'Isn't that a bit far from here?'

When both Rachel and Grant laughed Peri knew she'd made a mistake but they seemed so pleased by her gaff she at least felt appreciated, 'No my dear, the Jerusalem Hospital For The Mentally Infirm is only a few miles from here, established by Methodists on the site of the old asylum,' said Grant. 'Rachel here is on the board of trustees, quite a star there as an ex' he tailed away.

Rachel Farnsworth graciously filled in, 'What Grant is afraid to say is that I was a patient there,' she said. 'I suffered from acute schizophrenic episodes from childhood and was eventually catatonic. Then by God's grace I came round and was able to return to my estates . My second miracle was meeting dear old Grant here whose projects give Farnsworth Hall a new spirit of vitality.'

'Oh you flatter me,' said Grant abashed.

'I would like to see one of these cases if I could?', said the Doctor.

Rachel brightened at this, 'Of course, I can have Pearson bring round a horse and carriage for us in the morning,' she answered. 'That's if the weather is better tomorrow of course!'

* * *

As they retired from the dining room Rachel Farnsworth brought in a small Cello and Grant insisted that she play. Her playing was excellent and she started with a fine waltzing piece that had Grant up on his feet and asking Peri to dance. Peri couldn't refuse and felt a sudden thrill as his arms met hers and the spun slowly round the room. Peri had only attended two of the dancing lessons her mother had paid for before she gave up, but in the grand surroundings of Farnsworth hall and with the gentle promptings of Grant's hands the steps came to her quite naturally. Suddenly the Cello faltered and Rachel's fingers pulled a long sorrowful note from the instruments deep recesses. She lapsed into a slow piece Peri couldn't recognise, although the Doctor later told her it was by Bach, the music now seemed to express all the pain and grief of the world and continued until Miss Farnsworth suddenly stopped.

'I'm sorry,' was all she said before leaving the room. 

Grant explained that Rachel sometimes got tired spells, fugues he called them, but she would be right as rain in the morning. Peri and the Doctor were show up to the visitors quarters. She found her modern clothes had been carefully laid out beside the bed which had been warmed by a small copper pan that the maid took away with her. Although the house had been wired up with ceiling lights there was still an oil lamp beside the bed. Peri wasn't sure if this was in case the electricity failed or just a hangover from a previous era. After laboriously unhooking the back of her dress she stepped out of it and found a clean cotton night-dress under the pillows. She scooped up the dress onto a chair, clicked the light out and shot under the sheets. Lying there in the dark she could hear the Doctor's snores attesting to an over-indulgence in the Port bottle. She shut it out by thinking of the warm cloth of Grant's shirt and dancing endlessly.

* * *

Peri awoke with a sudden jolt, had there been a noise?, she couldn't tell, it was a full moon outside but the racing clouds made it's illumination unreliable. She could hear small noises creaking around the house, the sound of boards and beams rising and falling with the night. Suddenly there was a rattling noise from downstairs and she thought she heard Rachel's voice. Concerned for her hostess Peri got out of bed and stepped across the landing. In her bare feet she made hardly any sound but when she came to the hallway she winced at the cold stone underneath her. The sound seemed to be coming from the back of the house and she stepped lightly towards it. There the door was open and Peri stepped over to close it. She stopped and listened for breathing, there was none yet she felt as if there was something with her in the room. She could smell damp earth, a coarse tang of the soil. Suddenly the moonlight broke from the clouds and she could see the figure in the corner of the room. Over six foot tall it was shaped like a man but it had no details. It's head was like an unfinished statue, a nose, a chin but no eyes, no real face. Yet it moved, reaching towards her with a lumpy hand. Peri stepped back and fell backward. She must have hit her head and blacked out because she awoke the next morning back in her bed. She would have discounted it as a wild Port inspired dream if it hadn't been for the sore patch on the crown of her head and the dark mineral stains on her night-dress.

Chapter 4 - Excursions

The next morning the Doctor was up early for breakfast. This was a hearty selection of sausages, eggs, bacon, and kippers. With a cup of hot tea on the side the Doctor was in hog's heaven. Peri spooned some kedgeree onto her own plate and tried to tell the Doctor about the night's events.

'Doctor I have to tell you something,' she didn't want to alarm their hosts.

'Can't it wait Peri? Rachel is taking me up to see the Jerusalem Hospital this morning, remember?'

'No it can't, I'm pretty sure I didn't dream it.'

Pearson the butler came through to say that the carriage was ready and the Doctor jumped up to be off. 'Well, when you are one hundred percent sure Peri, let me know about whatever it is.' He was pulling on that awful coloured coat. She followed him angrily down the hall to the main door where Rachel Farnsworth sat waiting inside a carriage pulled by two chestnut mares, it's black lacquered sides glinted serenely in the daylight. The Doctor entered the carriage and waved at her. The coachman gave a sharp pull on the reins and the horses paced carefully down the drive until they got to the road.

'What would you like to do while the Doctor's away,' said Grant, Peri perked up immediately. 'We could go on a little excursion if you like.' he added.

Peri agreed to the idea right away.

* * *

The Doctor was enjoying the smell of leather coming from the immaculately upholstered interior of the carriage. Looking out he saw a tall stone standing alone in a field.

'Neolithic man Doctor,' said Rachel, as if she could read his thoughts. 'Raised to honour whatever strange gods they worshipped.'

'Perhaps,' said the Doctor.

'There's more soon,' said Rachel. 'The moors here are alive with ancient burial sites and stone circles.'

'Really?' said the Doctor. 'If I had more time I wouldn't mind visiting them.'

The carriage moved on, the stone circle was a rather disappointing affair, a few low rocks with sheep rubbing up against them and the Doctor did not stop the carriage.

* * *

Grant was finding Peri's company to be a pleasure. He no longer thought of her as Miss Perpeguilliam Brown, American, she was now his newest friend, as dear to him as Rachel but full of fun and energy. He had spent most of the morning teaching her the basics or riding and now she was trotting and cantering with the grace of a natural horse woman. Unlike Rachel she had no inclination to ride side-saddle, she cared little for the lady-like graces that seemed so important in this age. Of course she came from Earth's future and Grant could hardly see how such a stable and elegant society as this Britain he lived in could change much. Things must just have loosened up a little, that was all, and if it produced such a vibrant young woman then he couldn't find fault with it at all. Grant urged his horse to a canter, Peri followed suit and both horses swept through the countryside together.

* * *

As the carriage rose up above Farnsworth the Doctor started to become aware of a presence amongst the hills a tall brick structure, stark and uncompromising amongst the limestone outcrops. As they drew closer the road became rougher and he had plenty of time to consider the square structure. It could have been a prison or indeed a medical hospital but from what Rachel said it contained an element of both. Remedial care of the mentally ill and insane, not simply incarceration and restraint like the regimes of the old asylums but enlightened therapy for full recovery. Doubtless given this time period it was all quackery but Rachel was living proof that Jerusalem was progressive.

As they drew up to the gates they were met by Dr. Jacoby, a dark haired man with an elaborate mustache and beard and a stern looking top hat.

'Welcome to Jerusalem Doctor, I'm glad to make your acquaintance, we have the full grand tour planned for you!'

* * *

After a lunch of cold meat sandwiches and Grant proposed testing Peri's new riding skills with a trot over to Thomas Stevens' place. Stevens was obviously a friend of Grant's and a neighbour of Rachel's. Peri suspected that Stevens shared Grant's taste for science and industry. Apparently there was a mill of some kind and if she felt up to it a tour was on the cards. She smiled at his boyish enthusiasm.

As they rode out across the park land Peri felt a delicious freedom. Out on horseback on such a day as this was glorious, and as Grant cantered beside her the countryside became wilder and they progressed into hills broken by woodland.

'That's curious Peri.'

'What is Grant?'

'Those tracks, some kind of traction engine, although there hasn't been one in the village since ploughing.'

'Maybe they drove up for the view?' said Peri half laughing.

'Maybe they did' responded Grant, he'd become used to the ancient grandeur of the Derbyshire hills but through her eyes he could appreciate it's bleak beauty once again. They rode on and when the Stevens' house came into sight he broke into a gallop, Peri surprised him by spurring her own horse and soon she was in front, breathless, hair flying back in the wind, riding lithely in the stirrups, keyed to the roll of her mount. When they pulled up, grooms came out to meet them and as she dismounted Grant enjoyed the sheen of honest perspiration on her face from the exercise.

'Thomas let me introduce Miss Perpeguilliam Brown, Peri Thomas Stevens, squire, gentleman, forward thinking philanthropist and entrepreneur.'

'Delighted to meet you.' said a short man with a wide waistcoat and walrus whiskers.

'You are a lot of things Mr. Stevens, I'm very glad to meet you.'

'Me well I'm just an old duffer who eats too well,' he replied slapping his ample belly, 'Let me show you the estate my dear, you should find something here to your interest.'

'Peri is quite a modern young woman Stevens,' said Grant, 'She'd be very interest to see the mill.'

'Why then she shall, Grant, she certainly shall!'

* * *

The Doctor was getting a little tired of Jacoby's architectural pride, the elaborate white corridors and cast iron gantries were obviously a marvel to this age but the treatments he was being shown were less than convincing.

'Sorry, how's this hydrotherapy work again?'

'Well the flow of cold running water around the lunatics mind purifies and calms the fevered passions,' said the assistant.

The wretch in the glass enclosure howled yet again as the tap was turned and jets of ice cold water shot from the framework and down onto where the man's twisted head was clamped tight.

'But do you think it's appropriate in the case of a hydrophobic?' 

'Can't be pandering to the deranged mind Doctor got to face their fears or they'll never return to proper living eh?'. For a man engaged in a useless, degrading 'curative procedure' the orderly was far too cheekily upbeat for the Doctor's liking. Rachel and Jacoby had left him prior to this little demonstration and he was quite glad to see them enter again and indicate that the tour would continue.

'Are we to see the patient's Rachel mentioned?' he asked 'The ones who shared delusions of giant strangers roaming the woods?'

'Indeed we are Doctor,' replied Jacoby 'Step right this way.'

* * *

Peri had expected a watermill or perhaps a windmill, a picturesque part of the countryside. What she found was a textile mill, a vast brick building with glazed windows that reflected the afternoon sun. Her heart sank it was a stark reminder that she was in the era of industrial revolution and rampant venture capitalism, all based on the ascendancy of the British Empire.  


Stevens was keen to point out that this was a model mill, based on the ideas of his friends the Rowntrees and Salts. Peri had no idea what this meant but as they entered it became clear that the dingey, dangerous environment she had expected was not present at Stevens' fabric factory. The workers appeared well dressed and motivated, they moved from machine to machine with efficiency and safety guards were much in evidence.

'Of course there's a limit to the amount of protection these machines can be given but I don't force my people to take the risks you might find in Manchester or Birmingham.' Proclaimed Stevens above the noise of machinery.

The moved out of the main hall to the powering beam engine that drove the whole plant. The central beam rose and fell with an elegant swinging motion and the steel shaft it drove was bright with grease and movement. The brass topped gears and green painted girders of the engine were quite unlike the bland functional power plants of her time, this wasn't just technology it was kinetic art in a Victorian casting.

They ascended a spiral staircase and a raised engineers walkway brought them round for an impressive view of the swinging iron beam and the glistening steel piston rods. Lost in the hum of machinery Peri's gaze was attracted out the tall arched windows to the building beyond. This was an altogether less magnificent affair, a squat structure with crumbling bricks and a roof with lose tiles. The windows were dark with dust and grime but it was in the dark space behind Peri's peripheral vision picked up on moving shapes, frightening figures she almost remembered from her 'dream'.

'You look distracted Peri.'

'What's the building for Grant?' she asked.

'I don't know, Stevens? Peri's enquired about the old warehouse there..?'

'Warehouse? Oh no, that was here before I built the mill, it's an old dye works, abandoned now though, no need for it with the new method I've..'

'Could we take a look, Mr.Stevens?' asked Peri.

Stevens could think of no place less fitting for a lady than the old works but her smile was so winning he found himself calling for the foreman and keys were obtained.

Peri felt a faint smell like new mown hay as she entered the dank, unlit space but it was gone as soon as she had put a name to it. Where Stevens works inspired awe with it's grandeur the old dye works was claustrophobic. The rough stone pillars and compacted earth floor were miserable and there was no sign of any workers. She looked at the layers of grime that coated the windows and wondered how she could ever have believed she saw figures behind it's mask.

As she turned to leave, cursing her imagination, she noticed tracks by the doors Stevens had thrown open. It was the broad diagonal stripes of the traction engine they had noticed in the woods.

'Do you see it Grant?'

'The steam carriage tracks Peri? Yes I saw them as I entered but there's something more worrying..'

He gestured down at a corner of the room where the ground had been moistened by the leaking roof. There were footprints deep in the earth, not the small imprints of soles and heels with the boot nails so prevalent in this age, nor too the rough wooden clogs she'd seen some of the older mill workers favoured, these were oversized oblong lozenges, footprints that belonged to nothing she could imagine.

'A taste of the past eh?' said Stevens. 'The way it was before modern factory methods, but would you now care to retire back to the house for refreshments, tea?'

Peri accepted gracefully, the damp air of the works had caught in her throat and she wanted sit down and rest.

'Are you alright? Miss Brown?'

She suddenly felt the room drifting back and the next thing she was sitting on a wooden box while Stevens waved a hanky in front of her face. She realised she had fainted, if only momentarily, and cursed herself and restrictive Edwardian clothing she was wearing in equal measures. They walked her back up to the house and she shuddered as heard the old workshop doors pushed together. There was the sound of chains and heavy mechanisms as they were padlocked and bolted.

* * *

The Doctor entered the small cell on which a lanky figure lay wheezing.

Rachel spoke first, 'Hello William, there's another doctor here to see you!'

The young man spun back and recoiled as if afraid of him, the Doctor tried a question, 'Who did this to you?'.

'Stone Giants!' came the rasping reply, the boy's face creased in pain as the words came out.

'Stone giants? You can't mean the stone circles we passed on the way here?'

The boy shook his head and pointed towards Rachel, both her and the Doctor looked past into the corridor beyond and saw nothing but light and shadows.

The lad tried to speak again, 'Old Dee' He caught at his throat suddenly although the words had come clear to start with. Hunched over in a fit of coughing, Rachel summoned a nurse and they withdrew.

'Thank you for your help,' said the Doctor.

'Well,' said Rachel. 'I'm not sure what that tells us.'

'Quite a lot,' said the Doctor. 'In fact I have an idea what's going on here, it's just a question of why and whom.'

'You are brilliant Doctor,' said Rachel. 'Your genius knows no bounds.'

'Quite so, quite so,' agreed the Doctor.

'Can we discuss this privately,' said Rachel, looking at the warders and the nurse applying a steaming inhalation to William. 'How about next door, this empty cell.'

They slipped in and Rachel pulled the door to, muffling the patients sounds.

'This was my home for over two years,' she said suddenly.

'Really?' replied the Doctor. 'I simply cannot imagine you as Jacoby described.'

'Yes, you could almost say I'm a changed woman now,' said Rachel with a smile. 'So what do you make of William?'

'Gas attack, very mild but he's been near toxic vapours, mustard gas or possibly phosgene. The ulcerations and hemorrhaging are characteristic of it I'm afraid. Somebody near by is experimenting with chemical warfare and if only he could tell us William knows where and maybe even whom.'

'You are so perceptive Doctor. Let's get back to Farnsworth Hall to warn Grant.'

'Absolutely Rachel, you see things right away, if only Peri could be more like you.'

'Indeed, Doctor, if only,' said Rachel happily.

They walked back up through the East wing and came out where their carriage waited. The Doctor was keen to be off and away from Jerusalem, despite all his experience insanity in any form was not something he relished. He jumped up into the carriage and Rachel closed the door.

'Aren't you coming?' he asked surprised at her action.

'Thank goodness you are no real gentleman,' said Rachel. 'It would have been hard on me to have you enter first if you'd held the door like a man of breeding.'

'What are you talking about? Get in, get in,' flustered the Doctor, and then he saw that he was not inside the leather upholstered carriage anymore. The walls were heavy brick painted white and Rachel was looking back not through the wooden frame of the coach window but through the metal letterbox of a cell door. He was back in Jerusalem, back in the cell, he had never left and he could hear William's retching rictus through the wall.

'Rachel? Rachel? Rachel Farnsworth, if that's really your name, what the hell is going on?'

She smiled and lifted up the metal flap, it closed with a definite clank and he heard the sound of her boot nails striking the tiled floor, walking away. Then there was the sound of a heavy iron door slamming shut, keys turning in a lock, the chambers and levers bolting shut and then nothing but the sound of poor William coughing.

* * *

Later that evening Rachel arrived back at the house without the Doctor. Apparently he had decided to stay away overnight, but he had at least bothered to write a short note.

Peri,

There certainly is something going on here at Jerusalem Hospital. I shall be staying with Dr. Jacoby tonight and making further investigations tomorrow. Let Grant and Rachel take care of you for now. Trust them as you would trust me.

The Doctor

It didn't look like his writing but then Peri realised she hadn't actually seen the Doctor's hand-written script since his regeneration, which saddened her, although she could not put her finger on the reason.

Chapter 5 - Games

Jacoby tramped down the spiral staircase to the row of cells. He was interested to meet the poor soul Rachel had brought in yesterday. He was said to be delusional, entertaining a variety of wild notions about himself. He gestured to the orderly and a key turned in a heavy lock. Inside he found a man in his middle years with a round face and a shock of curly blonde hair.  


'Good morning Sir.' he said.

The man looked at him blankly and spoke with effort. 'It is not a good morning at all. I have just spent a night in this hell hole being bitten by fleas and at a moments notice your orderlies shove opiates down my throat!'

'Heroin. It's for your own good. It aids sleep and calms the mind.'

'It is soporific, stupefying, addictive and insidious. Thank goodness it'll soon be struck off the register.'

'Ah, so you are a medical Doctor but I've yet to hear any news of that I must say. Tell me where are you from Doctor Smith.' 

Again the man looked puzzled, struggling slowly to recall. 'Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborus.'

'Really, isn't that in the heavenly spheres?'

'I suppose you might say so,' said the man 'but it's vital I get back to Farnsworth Hall. Rachel is not, is not what she appears to be.'

'Really?'

He quickened, eyes flashing with memory. 'Yes, she is wholly in the sway of the Dark Powers, whatever is left of her personality is totally dependent on them now.'

'Dark Powers? Supernatural I take it Doctor.'

'To the people of this age perhaps, but they are real, evil, and at work here'

'And what do they want Doctor?'

'What they've always wanted, pain and death in the sentient species of the universe.'

'Why do they want that?'

'They resent our physical form when they are forced outside of space/time. They must gain their revenge vicariously.' 

'And how do they propose to do that?'

The man who answered to just the name Doctor looked blank again. 'I don't know' he said.

* * *

After the interview Jacoby left strict instructions for the warders. Paranoid delusions with persecution fantasies. Complex schizophrenic stratagems. He wasn't even sure the man had been a doctor. He would require a lot of work, and if this morning's conversation was anything to go by his stay at Jerusalem was likely to be a long one.

* * *

In the morning Peri was late for breakfast and she was relieved to find Grant alone.

'Rachel? Oh she's gone up to Jerusalem to check on our friend the Doctor.' he said in answer to her question.

'Oh.'

'Today I thought you might like to see my Airship project.' 

'Airship?'

'Yes, what with all this trouble I haven't had time for it but Pearson informs me the new engines have arrived. So she's almost ready to fly.'

Peri was glad of a diversion from her deep suspicions and recognised the boyish enthusiasm in Grant's eyes. So similar to the Doctor. She then wondered what Rachel was up to with him at Jerusalem. 

* * *

Dr. Jacoby stepped into the cell.

'A visitor for you mister Doctor, Miss. Farnsworth has come to see you.'

'Have you asked her about the Dark Powers?'

'Of course not Doctor, it would be improper to pander your delusions in front of a lady, particularly Rachel Farnsworth.' 

'That's alright Dr. Jacoby I'm not afraid of the Doctor, I've come to reason with him.'

Rachel stepped into the cell and sat on the rough stone window seat, her eyes impassive.

'Unfortunately Rachel,' said Jacoby 'The Doctor here already knows too much. What he has deduced, what he has guessed, is too dangerous to our plans to allow him to 'recover'.' 

Rachel sat quietly, her eyes glazed in blank incomprehension. The room seemed to have gone darker as if a cloud had suddenly gone in front of the sun.

'What have you done to her?' demanded the Doctor.

'Merely shown you how wrong you were. Call yourself a Doctor, a Time Lord, you couldn't sense the evil within me.' Jacoby's eyes glittered with a dark flame and his saturnine face took on a new aura of threat.

'Your regeneration is unstable Doctor.'

'That's rich coming for a vessel of ancient malice!' 

'But it is true. You projected your fear and hatred onto Rachel, in the same way you projected it onto your companion Peri when you tried to strangle her. Time's champion indeed?! Time's hooligan more like!'

'Get to the point Jacoby.' spat the Doctor.

'The point is that there is a hole in your mind Doctor. Like a hole in an elaborate fabric and it's going to unravel the whole web of lies you've woven for yourself.'

'Absolute balderdash, I am 100%, A. OK, tip top condition, 20/20, top of morning, the bees knees, the kipper's kettle, the owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat' 

'Oh pussycat, oh pussycat how pretty you are.' said Rachel to herself.

The cell was quite quiet and the warders marveled at the healing power she brought. The Doctor grabbed at Jacoby and the grappled before they fell, still fighting desperately as they disappeared into the Reichenbach Falls, which were a beautiful pea green... 

* * *

The way down to the airship hanger took them along a leafy path and the immense size of the place took her by surprise as it rose up from behind a screen of trees.

'Magnificent isn't it?' said Grant, 'I've had Pearson get the groundsmen prepare the hanger for us.'

As they drew close to the massive hanger doors Grant went to a small box mounted by the path and pulled an outsized lever that might have come out of a railway signal box. Slowly the doors of wood and corrugated metal began to part and inside Peri began to see a gigantic construction. Light began to catch on the brass engine plates and the screw propellers as the doors drew apart, until finally the airship was entirely revealed a huge white ellipse of treated cotton and metal framework with a tiny gondola slung underneath. It was a masterpiece of Edwardian engineering with each brass surface polished to a deep bronze and bright flourishes painted on the side of the gondola.

'Well what do you think of it?' Grant asked his face beaming like a school boy with a prize conker.

'It's it's amazing!' she stuttered.

'Would you like to help me try it out?' Grant asked.

'You mean it'll fly?' blurted Peri.

'Well I hope so,' said Grant indignantly, 'Over a year of design and six months of construction, it should bally well fly!'

'Well where do we start?' asked Peri.

Grant lead her up to a tiny set of stairs that lead to the open door of the gondola. She was perturbed to see that the airship was not even resting on the ground, only the guy ropes held it and these were now being loosed by groundsmen. She stepped into the gondola and was surprised at how steady the whole thing was. In front of her was a control panel that matched the burnished glory of the exterior, all brass levers and sturdy gauges. Grant stepped in behind her and they say down on the cockpit seat, she could feel his excitement, the anticipation and anxiousness. The craft drifted forward as the groundsmen edged it out of the hanger and two men span the propellers. Grant flicked a big switch and the two engines exploded into life, Peri felt a strange thrill deep in the pit of her stomach and steadied herself even though the airship rose with a steady grace. Before she knew it she had her arm around Grant, and he accepted it naturally. He looked at her his breath a little quick and his eyes more alive than she'd ever seen them.

'Are you ready?'

She nodded like a little girl.

'Well then, let's go!', he replied and the engines roared like lions let free from their cages and the sky rose up closer. Peri let out a whoop of joy and Grant smiled.

* * *

The Doctor found himself back in a cell, not the cell he had spent a night in at Jerusalem but a different kind of cell. An apprentice's cell at the academy on Gallifrey. He felt an unpleasant rush of memories stampeding to the front of his thoughts, remembrances pushed back through regenerations, lost in a haze of travel and adventure, instantly restored by being back in one place. Unlike the cell in the asylum a probationer Time Lord used his cell as a retreat, to lock out the flow of minds, to lock out the bigotry of his teachers, to focus on knowledge and the struggle to understand the cosmos.

Except this wasn't his cell, little details were wrong, the tiny window view was to the North, the desk was new style and the bedclothes weren't Pyrodonian.

'No Doctor, it's Grant's cell,' said Jacoby. The Doctor turned and found the man behind him in the shadows. 'Well we remember it as he invited us in with the ancient text. The mental shock almost killed him but we have no concern for the comfort of Time Lords.'

'So you speak for the Dark Powers,' said the Doctor. 'and all this?'

'A convenient illusion Doctor, to get you used to your treatment Doctor.'

'Treatment?'

'Yes, we have the resources to cure you Doctor, to take away the daemons that assault your soul.'

'The only daemons here are standing right in front of me.'

'Oh really?' said Jacoby, as he stepped out into the light and the Doctor realised he was looking at himself. There was a sickening twist in the room and the Doctor felt a sensation somewhere between falling and passing out. A sensation he was beginning to associate with the madness of the Dark Powers.

* * *

'This is the way to travel Grant, it's so much nicer than the airplanes of my time!', said Peri, as they moved gracefully over the Derbyshire countryside, the only sound the thrum of idling engines.

'Aeroplanes Peri, well aeroplanes are fine if you fancy a noisy plummet inside a box of wood, string and sealing wax but this is really the only way to fly. Airships are the future' 

'Er.. sorry Grant but at my end of this century, everyone flies in jets. It's cramped and the in-flight meals are awful but it's how everyone travels. There are a few blimps that cover sports events'

Grant looked a bit crest-fallen, 'Why Peri? What happened?' he asked.

'Well airships played a part in the First World War but afterwards airplanes were faster and then when the Zeppelin crashed'

Grant looked pained, 'Peri, perhaps it's better I don't know any more about this planet's future, I can't imagine these tranquil villages at war, these are peaceful folk, lets enjoy today, let's enjoy this moment in flight.'

Peri bit her lip and leaned into him with agreement. There among the clouds, coasting above Netherworth, she couldn't imagine how the horrors of the Somme could come about either, it was unreal. Next to her Grant's tall frame was full of the warmth of Edwardian optimism and she wanted to stay next to him forever.

* * *

'I'm a Time Lord from Gallifrey! Why can't you leave me alone?' 

'No, Doctor let's see where you really come from.'

The Doctor found himself in a small room lit only by a glowing coal fire and a pale yellow lamp. On the table it stood on was a black leather bag.

'A country practice, your home Doctor Smith, a quiet cottage in Netherworth. You have treated the people of this town for twelve years. Seen to fevers, rheumatic pains, measles and of course you've seen your fair share of death. This is where you come home to. A lonely house since your wife Alice passed away. All your medical skills and you couldn't save her. Couldn't cheat death of his due. And this is where you now come to lose yourself.' 

The Doctor's vision shifted his eyes drawn round the black bag to the other side where a small lacquered case lay open inside were small glass phials and next to them lay an empty hypodermic syringe.

'Morphine Doctor, a bosom companion to those in pain and the grip of death. But you took it to lose the pain of memory. To escape the reality of your failure in it's warm oblivion.'

'No!' shouted the Doctor 'This is a lie!'

'All those amazing things you said, all those tales of outer spaces, they are naught but the opium dreams of an addict. You invented a world where you were a Lord of Time, where you could cheat time and bring your dead wife back. It's understandable, Doctor Smith, but now you have to face up to the truth!'

* * *

'See how she sits with him, just talking. She's an example to us all. Rachel Farnsworth deserves a medal for the work she does here. An angel among devils surely.'

* * *

Peri's heart jumped when Rachel announced the doctor would be at dinner that night but her spirits fell when she heard it was Dr. Jacoby, governor of Jerusalem Hospital.

Jacoby was dark little man with a fastidious mustache and trimmed beard that reminded her of the creep she had met when she first encountered the Doctor. Although she had seen the 'Master' reduced and enlarged in size she couldn't imagine that he'd have chosen five foot nothing as his perfect height. Besides Jacoby was skittish like a horse in the stables and had none of the grand manner of a Time Lord, even if his looks were saturnine his manner was trivial. He was an administrator; indifferent at medicine he had taken to running Jerusalem in order to feel important. Peri drew these conclusions as the evening began because there was nothing Jacoby like talking about more than himself.

As the meal proceeded she began to suspect that the others knew something she didn't, some dread news they had to break to her but were waiting for a suitable point in the conversation. As the small talk exhausted itself and the lavish meat dish Peri had pushed around her plate was being cleared away, Jacoby took a deep breath that signaled she was about to tell Peri a difficult fact.

'Peri,' said Jacoby addressing her like a child, 'as you know last night the Doctor has been stayed with us at Jerusalem hospital. Unfortunately it was not as a guest, but as a patient. Rachel alerted me to some of the latent instabilities in his character but I'm afraid that he has become worse. You may have noticed it as a tendency to exaggerate, sudden fits of temper, delusions of omniscience perhaps? However the Doctor's state of mind is now very delicate, although he may appear balanced he has fallen into a world of fantasy that we cannot bring him out of.'

'I don't believe it.' said Peri, but she could see that Jacoby was in earnest.

'I wish it wasn't true Peri.' said Rachel 'But he's started seeing conspiracy in every corner, believing things that cannot be true.'

'I have to see him.' blurted Peri, 'I'm sure I know what the Doctor is like. He may be a bit rude, arrogant even, but he's stabilised, I know it.' Peri's words sounded unconvincing even to her.

'We thought you'd feel this way, Peri, so we've made arrangements for you to visit him tomorrow. Perhaps he'll respond to your influence.', said Rachel kindly.

Peri found herself standing, so she sat down. It was that damned unstable regeneration business again. No doubt the Doctor would come round and surprise everyone the way he had done before. Minutes of irritating wordplay followed by a moment of sheer genius. That was him at his best. He could be maddening at times but he was never really mad.

Strangely the thought of going to Jerusalem hospital made her shiver, even though she had yet to visit the place. That night Peri locked the door to her room and pulled the bedclothes up tight.

Chapter 6 - Choices

In the morning Peri prepared to visit the Doctor at the Jerusalem Hospital. Rachel again loaned her clothes, this time heavy garments for travelling and once aboard the little carriage she was glad of them. The air cut right through her and she soon accepted the muff and bonnet that she had taken to be affectations of Rachel's. Farnsworth Hall grew distant as they rode up into the Derbyshire hills. Hedges petered out into the dry-stone walls the area was famous for and the trees began to take on a hunched appearance, bent by the prevailing winds.

'Has there been any sort of history of this thing with the Doctor?' asked Grant.

'Well,' said Peri 'this regeneration thing it's not quite what you'd call, stable. He's sort of settling down into his new personality'

'Has he ever been violent to you?' asked Rachel.

'Well he did once put his hands round my throat but that was right after it happened'

'How sad,' said Rachel 'that's exactly how he reacted to Dr. Jacoby.'

'Will he be alright?' said Peri.

Grant put his arm round her reassuringly. 'I'm sure Jerusalem Hospital will help the Doctor recover in the same way it helped Rachel.'

* * *

The Doctor awoke between clean starched sheets. He was relaxed with the sun breaking between heavy curtains and the dreams of treachery and incarceration seemed distant and faint. He swung his feet to the floor and met a worn Persian rug. He walked across the darkened bedroom and pulled back the curtains in his night gown. Outside were the quiet houses of Netherworth, the town's people going about their early morning business and he remembered he was their doctor.

As he dressed he found the housekeeper had left a jug of warm water and a cake of shaving soap. The razor was a full blade that needed stropping and all his concentration to avoid cutting himself. The towel was hard but dry and starchy. He found clothes on the dresser and selected a new clean collar for his shirt. He looked every bit the gentleman. Now to find out more about himself.

The Doctor caught himself with a jolt, the night's dream came back to him sudden and lucid, he remembered the needle, syringe and phial. The implication all to clear.

With deep loathing he forced himself to turn around and look back at the bed. The bedside table appeared empty except for a candlestick and doily but he knew he had to look harder. He walked up to the headboard and looked at the side of the bedside cabinet. There in an alcove made to conceal a water glass was a small enamel kidney dish. He tipped it and felt sick. There was a hypodermic syringe, a large glass affair with an evil looking needle and next to it an ampule. It was empty. He was Dr.Smith, a small practitioner in Netherworth, and an opiate addict.

* * *

Jerusalem Hospital was a dark brick building that made Peri think 'Haunted Castle' as soon as she saw it rounding the hillside. The slate roofs were surmounted by spiked iron railings and stark gutters that reminded her more of gargoyles than ironmongery. The Victorian architect had added more than a hint of the gothic and Peri wondered how such a place could ever have been considered a fit place of the mentally ill.

Jacoby was very proud of the place and Peri glazed over hearing about it's charitable construction, it's good intentions and board of trustees. They alighted from the carriage in the inner courtyard and Jacoby lead them into the main building. Tall inner walls were rough brick painted with whitewash and there was a smell of sweat and urine. Rows of cells were linked by iron gantries and twisting spiral staircases. There was a constant background noise, a low hum of muttering lips and unstill bodies, occasionally broken by a shouted expletive, the crash of a fist against an iron cell door or a scream of incoherent syllables that sent a shiver up Peri's spine.

They moved straight through to the Doctor's cell which was off the main block by a strange glass contraption which Jacoby explained was for 'hydroptherapy'. Jacoby paused at the cell door, as if to caution her about what lay within.

'Now remember Peri, the Doctor is not quite the same man you knew a few days ago.'

'Oh come on Jacoby how bad can he be?' replied Peri 'I'm used to his changes, open the door and let's see.' 

'Alright then,' said Rachel 'but let me go in with you Peri, I think you may need some support.'

Peri looked at Rachel and wondered if she was meant to feel partonised or comforted. She decided to let it pass, a key was turned and Peri went in.

* * *

The Doctor was walking in the park feeling at ease with himself. The monies from the life insurance company would certainly help things along. He could live a little more grandly now and he could remember little of his wife Alice. There was no hurt, he could recall their past life together but she wasn't real to him. Perhaps their marriage had been lack lustre, no burning flames, but he couldn't summon up the requisite grief that would seem decent.

As he walked a pair of young women approached. Quite surprising himself he greeted them heartily.

'Good morning ladies, what a beautiful day it is!'

They looked at him bemused. 'Doctor do you remember me? I'm Rachel and this is your friend Peri.'

The Doctor certainly did not remember them but he certainly liked what he saw. Rachel was tall with pale skin and dark hair tied back severely, but Peri was quite astonishing, short but narrow of waist and a more than just a tad buxom up front. He felt certain he should like to entertain them and if they felt him to be familiar so much the better. 'Enchanté, Miss Peri.' he replied.

'No just Peri, Doctor, short for Perpeguilliam remember? Perpeguilliam Brown?'

'I'm not sure that I do but I hope I will have happy memories of you soon good lady.' he replied lustily.

'The Doctor is not entirely well Peri' said her companion whose name he had already forgotten, 'Isn't that right Doctor?'.

Her tone was a bit like a nurse talking to a child but he took it she was referring to his loss and decided to play along. 'Indeed Madame the loss of my dear Alice has been a great sadness.'

'Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?' exclaimed Peri.

The Doctor hadn't expected this, 'Why my dear dead wife Miss!' he replied in surprise.

'You never said you were married! I don't believe I am hearing this!' she was quite shrill now. Perhaps he had dallied a little with her in the past and then forgotten it. The Doctor reprimanded himself, if he was truly a man of weak morals then at least he could have been one with a decent memory for falsehoods. He made to apologise with but the two women were drawing away.

'I'm sorry Peri let me take you away from here.'

Oh dear, thought the Doctor, I seem to have made the poor girl cry.

* * *

Peri said little on the return to Farnsworth Hall and dinner was eaten in silence. Afterwards Rachel drew Peri aside conspiratorially.

'I'm sorry you had to see him like that,' said Rachel. 'Perhaps if we could get him to his Tardis'

'You know about all that?' said Peri surprised.

'Oh yes Grant told me all about his former life as a Time Lord.'

'And you believed him?'

'Well I know it does sound fantastical, but I was brought up to have an open mind to all things.' replied Rachel.

Peri could believe she marveled at Grant's scientific prowess but she was unaware that Rachel had been made aware of his true origins.

'Yes,' said Peri. 'Perhaps you are right. We could take him there tomorrow.'

'Or you could provide me with it's location and Grant could pilot it there.'

'Yes, perhaps, maybe tomorrow.' Peri was suddenly unnerved to find Rachel Farnsworth knew so much about the Tardis and Time Lords. She could have learned it all from Grant but somehow she couldn't credit a woman of this age accepting it so naturally.

'I hope you don't mind if I retire early Peri,' said Rachel. 'Feel free to occupy Grant with conversation. He really is good company for a lady you know.' and with that she went upstairs to bed.

* * *

The Doctor was woken by his housekeeper's knocking, 'Doctor Smith! Doctor Smith! It's the police hear to see you!'

'Very well then, show them in!' said the Doctor, getting up from the chair had been napping in, he raked his hair back from his eyes and checked in the mirror that he was presentable and prepared to meet the boys in blue.

A short man with a trilby and boot-brush mustache entered. 'Inspector Bartlett, Scotland Yard, sir.' he intoned offering his right hand.

The Doctor took it and shook, he found Bartlett's handshake firm despite his watery eyes and over greased hair.

'Duty compels me to ask you a few questions regarding the death of your wife Doctor Smith. There is no intention to cause offense or intrude on your grieving but the law must be satisfied.'

The Doctor didn't quite like the sound of this but tried to show good grace. 'I quite understand, ask away Inspector.', he gestured to the guest chair.

'Thankyou sir,' Bartlett fidgeted on the cushions, fiddling with a fountain pen and police notebook. 'Firstly I believe you administered to your wife yourself throughout her illness.'

'Quite so I am a medical man after all.' smiled the Doctor.

'And did you prescribe her anything for her ailments?' 

'A few sedatives towards the end but her condition was hardly treatable, a fatal tumour.'

'So you say Doctor but I'm afraid the coroner has found no such growth on her body!'

'I don't believe it! Why anyone could see'

'Friends of hers report fainting, nausea, fatigue but none have ever reported visible signs of malignancy, we have only your word for it.'

'That should be enough Inspector,' blustered the Doctor. 'I am a doctor and a gentleman.'

'Yes, yes, it would be' said the little Inspector. 'If, if it were not for these.'

He held out a number of sheets of paper. 'Prescriptions for morphia drawn at various chemists and pharmacies around this immediate area, for quantities so large that if administered could cause illness and even death.'

'Are you suggesting I killed my late wife!' the Doctor roared.

'No that is being proposed by her sister's family and you will have to account for each one of these purchases, the patient or patients who received them and what was ailing them.'

'Get out, get out of my house right now, Get Out!'

'If you are going to take that attitude then', Bartlett scurried up and left the door ajar. The Doctor stood holding his head in his hands trying to remember what he had really done and dreading the thought that the substances had been obtained for his own personal use.

* * *

They sat in silence by the fire.

'Grant?'

'Yes, Peri?'

'Why do Time Lords have a thing for Earth?'

'I'm not sure what you mean Peri, I was just exiled here, so was the Doctor, it's sort of traditional really.'

'Yes but why this planet, why Earth?'

'I hadn't really thought about it, you know humans and Time Lords are very similar.'

'Really? I can't say I'd noticed that.'

'Oh we are, we enjoy your company. Gallifrey is like a far future Earth that has gone up a historical cul-de-sac. Time technology is as much a burden as a blessing Peri. Most Time Lords bury themselves in academic study to while the eons away, afraid of the change that regeneration will bring.'

'Afraid of change?' Peri wasn't quite sure she saw the point.

'Each regeneration is like a little death to some, the rebirth aspect is quite immaterial next to inevitable upheaval of personality. Whole tracts of memory are cut off, knowledge remains intact but the core of a Time Lord's being will be shaken completely. Some embrace this, renegades wildly run amok across the galaxy and burn up their regenerations like moths around the flame of power.'

'Like the Master?' suggested Peri.

'Quite so, Peri, a notorious example indeed. A tiny few are equally active in their fight against evil, like the Doctor but the vast majority sit and watch the time vortex. Observe but never interfere. I was like that until I stepped over the rubicon.'

'Rubik what?'

'I breached the threshold. I meddled with Dark Powers I had no understanding of and was exiled here, on Earth, a natural choice because we share similar values. Humans and Gallifreyans share the same hopes and dreams, the same passions'

Animated he had drawn close to her and was looking deep into her eyes.

'Do we share anything more?' she asked and he leaned forward slowly. His lips met hers in a soft kiss and she responded let her mouth move hotly into his. They embraced and the seconds seemed to stretch into hours as his arms held her and his mouth explored her neck. Her hands met across his back and she could taste the sherry on his breath, feel the beating of both his hearts. When they loosened she was faint and panting.

'I'm sorry' he said, shocked at himself.

'Don't be Grant.' she responded.

'I didn't mean'

'But we happened anyway, Grant don't fight it.'

'Will this complicate things Peri?'

'Perhaps it will make things simpler.'

'What do I tell Rachel? And you the Doctor?'

'We don't need to tell them anything.' she said. She put her arms around his neck, drew herself up and they kissed again.

* * *

The Doctor awoke on the cell mattress, it was night and the cold had eaten into his bones but he was no longer in the nightmare of phantasm the Dark Powers had tricked him into. This was reality and he felt it in every aching bone as he straightened and stood up.

The corridors of Jerusalem hospital were heavy with a deep silence. The shouts and cries of the inmates were absent as if they felt the approaching evil. The tap on the hydrotherapy chamber dripped with a metronomic certainty into a thin pool of icy water, perfect ripples radiating out in circles, the dripping noise clear as a bell, as demonstrative as a heartbeat. Death was drawing near. 

The Doctor looked out the shuttered grill in his cell door and observed a dark presence drawing closer.

Death wore a heavy dress of black silk that drew into an hourglass waist and a scooped neckline that revealed an alabaster cleavage, white in the moonlight. This might have been mannequin, a beautiful doll, if the sublime figure had not been surmounted by a black rubber gas mask, it's thick glass eyes glinting like the dull sockets of a skull, it's cylindrical filter hanging like the snout of a misshapen beast. She moved down the corridors of Jerusalem in total silence, even the feet of the two lumpen figures that followed were subtle, their rhythmic gait setting up a counter-point in the water pool. For minutes the procession came towards the glass chamber and an exquisite interference pattern broke out across the water's surface. A shimmering symmetry that glistened in the moonlight and then broke apart and fell into chaos as the bizarre party stopped. The Doctor could see the fine black lace against pale white skin and the black rubber straps over raven dark hair. The glass eye-pieces looked at him mutely.

The two heavy accomplices laid down the cylinders they had been holding. The female figure gestured at the cell doors and one stepped forward with a key. The Doctor could make out it's face as it crossed the floor. A shaft of light showed moulded leathery features, a rough triangular nose, no eyes, just rough pits, a mockery of a face like a child's first attempt at clay sculpture. The Doctor thought the name 'Golem', a dread figure from deep in Earth's primitive folk-lore, a being from Jewish myth and anti-semitic propaganda now walking in the English night.

The Golem opened the door of the cell next to him and he could hear the sound of William scurrying to the back wall. Then there was silent struggle, the boys panting breath and incoherent shrieks, the Golem moving with a rustle like earth moving. They emerged the lad held in the Golem's enveloping arms, still struggling but weaker now, being forced into the hydrotherapy chair, the leather straps being pulled tight, the Golem creatures working with hideous efficiency and all the while the woman looking from inside the mask. The glass doors to the hydrotherapy enclosure were sealed tight and the two creatures raised the heavy cylinders they had brought in. The canister lids were twisted and began to lift off, a thin colourless gas emerged and William began to move with hysterical energy, shaking in the chair, staining at the leather restraints his breath gagging, unable even to scream. Suddenly it dawned on the Doctor that he was dying, whatever it was the cylinders contained a lethal poison gas.

'Nooooo!!' he shouted, and the sound echoed down the corridors of Jerusalem.

The devil woman looked at him intently, reading his defiance, then turned back to her inhuman experiment. The body of William lay slumped in the copper piped chair, his two executioners silent. As the woman nodded they turned a tap and water washed over the chamber, the Doctor realised this must somehow negate any gas vapour remaining within the chamber. The water sprays were turned off again and the Golems emerged through the glass door pulling the limp corpse. There was a smell like newly cut grass, a scent of suburban afternoons and rural haymaking, now bound up with swift invisible death.

'What is going on here?'. It was Jacoby running down the main gantry in his night gown, his face incandescent with outrage. The woman turned towards him and raised her hands to the gas mask. The huge thing lifted off her small head to reveal the porcelain features of Rachel Farnsworth. She appeared self-contained, unshaken by her act or their discovery, in her eyes burnt the tiny embers of an unholy fire.

'Jacoby, how unfortunate you had to hear the Doctor's foolish noise, I shall have to make you a heavier sleeper.'

'Rachel, how can you be so flippant? What have those two brutes done to Master William?', he shouted and made to get at the boy's body. Suddenly he was frozen mid-action, Rachel seemed to be exerting some kind of hypnotic hold.

'Go back to bed Jacoby, in the morning you shall remember only a peculiar dream. William died of simple nervous exhaustion and you will confirm this later.'

'Right well, thank you very much Rachel, good night.', Jacoby turned and made his way back out as if he had encountered nothing at all.'

'What's this all about Rachel Farnsworth, or whatever you call yourself?' said the Doctor, 'What did the Dark Ones offer you to do their work? What are they planning? It had something to do with that gas, yes?'

'Very good Doctor but I can't allow you to go any further. You have places to go and people to see. This is just a dream, or rather a nightmare, the result of the influence of morphine, which will haunt you when you awake', and with those words, the Doctor felt the peculiar blurring of vision that told him reality was being rewritten again.

* * *

After midnight Peri awoke with a start. Cold sweat had soaked her night dress right through and she told herself she must have being having a vivid dream. She crossed the bedroom floor without lighting the lamp and pulled the heavy curtains apart to let a cold ray on moonlight illuminate the room. She pulled off the damp nightie and looked for another in the chest of drawers. Before she could find one she heard a faint shrill sound breaking the still of the night. It was somewhere between a sigh and scream and seemed to be coming from across the corridor. Making do with throwing the bed coverlet over her shoulders she made her way to the door. Opening it she was aware of how exposed she was but the sound was stronger now, a low scraping like a car stripping gears but unmistakably from a human throat. There was a light coming from the end of the corridor and as she walked towards it she remember this would be Grant's bedroom. The door was ajar and she leant round it to see what was afflicting him. Nothing prepared her for the what she saw.

Grant lay in bed, obviously dressed for sleep but his face was far from peaceful, eyes open and mouth agape the sound was coming from his larynx. Above him was Rachel her face a mask of rapture, her hands tensed above his temples, her eyes dark and distorted. There was a faint glow lighting the whole scene. Peri grew convinced that Rachel was taking some strange energy from Grant. Neither of the two noticed her, they were locked together in a strange tableaux that lasted for long minutes. Gently Rachel loosened her grip and Grant slipped back into sleep. Peri slipped back behind the door as Rachel came back to the world. She carefully padded back to her room and listened to the sound of Grant's door being shut and Rachel's footfall moving down to her chamber. Peri suddenly wished for the Doctor to be there and then she remembered he was a patient at Jerusalem. Naked in the big Victorian bedstead Peri cried silent salty tears before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep. She kept her door locked.

Chapter 7 - Delusions

The little girl stood in front of a row of her teachers and looked down at the floor. Their mortar board covered eyes burned with red flames and they seemed immensely tall under the black gowns they all wore.

'What have you to say for yourself girl.'

'Sorry teacher.'

'Sorry? What do you mean sorry.'

'I thought I had failed you in some way.'

'Failed? No the plan proceeds, the Doctor is crippled, what more could we want?'

'I don't know teacher.'

Whack! Down came the cane on the desktop.

'We want more and we want it sooner. Grant will have his project ready soon and there is enough chemical for our purposes. But faster girl, faster!'

'Yes teacher.'

'Oh and Rachel,'

'Yes teacher.'

'Kill the Doctor will you? We will feed on the mind of a Time Lord tonight, we are starved by the scraps of Grant you throw us. It's either the Doctor or him, and we know you secretly love Grant.'

'Yes teacher.'

* * *

Jacoby went down to the Doctor's cell for a second time, something disturbed him about the man's accusations and his demeanour. It was as if the Doctor were truly fighting external forces, not personal demons. He unlocked the iron door.

'Hello Jacoby, how can I help you?'

'Oh I thought I could help you.' he replied.

'Well we are both labouring under the weight of delusions.' said the Doctor, 'Delusions neither of our minds have generated.' 

'Oh really?'

'Yes but I am aware of mine and actively resisting their incursion, whereas you are not.' replied the Doctor.

'Oh and what is my problem?' said Jacoby surprised to find himself playing along with the Doctor.

'Rachel has had you under her power since the early emergence of the Dark Powers within her. You have been selectively treated to erase events she does not wish to remember and create fictions to support your good opinion of and trust in her. Do you remember last night Jacoby, do you remember how she murdered William?'

Jacoby felt a sharp lancing pain through his temples, it was the migraine again and he spoke with difficulty, 'I remember no such thing, Doctor. Why have you no proof of these wild assertions?'

'I have no proof but I do have a talisman.'

'A talisman?'

'Yes an object of power that will protect you from the Dark Ones and help clear your mind of their web of lies. Here!'

The Doctor held out a plain, round stone about the size of a sovereign, he took it bemused. It was smooth like it had been washed in the river, the rhythm of gravel and rocks polishing it, and across the middle of the stone was a thins stripe of white, a seem of quartz perhaps.

Jacoby suddenly felt like the butt of a particularly ripe joke. 'Thank you Doctor.', he said.

'Concentrate on it and your thoughts will gain clarity!' enthused the idiot Doctor.

'I'm sure I will.' said Jacoby as he dropped the stone into his breast pocket and quickly exited the cell.

'My god, I must be going soft.' he thought, 'I let them string me along and then they take advantage of my good nature. The man was making a fool of me and I stepped right into it. No more, no more!'

* * *

'Grant, do you remember anything strange from last night?' ventured Peri.

'Only that I awoke feeling a certain lassitude I have become accustomed to. Soon remedied by a hearty breakfast and fresh air.' he replied.

'You don't remember Rachel coming to your room then?' she asked.

'I'm sure I would Peri but no such thing happened I can assure you. What are you suggesting?'

'Last night I saw her standing over your bed, she was draining something from you, some kind of energy.' said Peri.

'Are you serious Peri? I can't believe it, you must have been dreaming.'

'I was awake.'

'A waking dream, brought on by worry for your friend the Doctor.'

'No Grant! It really happened I saw it, I was there'

'I still cannot permit myself to believe such an accusation Peri. Rachel Farnsworth is my benefactor and I am indebted to her for making my stay here on Earth both comfortable and interesting.'

'Yes Grant but what does she get in return?'

'My company, my devotion, perhaps even my love..' he said thoughtfully watching how she reacted.

'Love, Grant, but I ...' Peri's word's dried in her throat and she realised she had made a terrible mistake letting herself fall in love with him. Grant had enjoyed her company, been charmed by her naiveté but his affection was reserved for the ivory white charms of Rachel Farnsworth. She could not say the words she had planned, now she could never admit her love to Grant.

'I plan to propose my intentions of marriage to Rachel tomorrow. I have seen the burden of wandering as a renegade Time Lord in the Doctor and do not wish such a life. I plan to settle in this pleasant land, make it my home and never return to Gallifrey, my place is here by her side forever. I trust you to respect that Peri.'

Peri turned her back to him and walked slowly back up to the house, tears coursing down her face, hot and salty.

Grant looked at she walked away, he could tell she was hurt but it would heal, he cursed himself for leading her on but this morning it was all so clear, his loyalty lay with Rachel and his love with it. Still he wished it could have been cleaner, simpler for Peri, first her distress at the Doctor's condition and now this, he felt an uneasy mixture of shame and anger that only a long hard gallop around the estate could erase. He set off for the stables.

* * *

Peri walked back to the house, her head in a whirl and found herself by the kitchens. Not being Edwardian or even English she went straight in and walked past the neatly scrubbed benches and heavy copper pans hanging in orderly rows. Then she noticed the cellar door and remembered her first night at Farnsworth Hall.

Peri put her hand to the heavy iron handle and found it unlocked. Behind steps went down into a musty darkness and the smell brought back the heavy presence of evil she had felt that night. Electric light obviously did not extend to this part of the house and Peri found an oil lamp on a shelf with matches. The oil burnt with a sweet aromatic scent and she recalled that whale oil had been a staple lighting fuel in this time period. Holding the map ahead of her she walked down the steps into the wine cellar, grateful for the sudden investigative impulse that allowed her to forget her anguish and anger at Grant. She embraced the darkness, moving forward.

'Mistress Peri?' said a voice.

She turned and met the face of Pearson, old and heavy in the lamp light, his eyes dark and brow furrowed. Peri laughed a little at how he had frightened her.

'Oh Pearson, you gave me a shock.' she answered.

'And someone has given you something to cry about.' he observed, gesturing to her wet cheeks and holding out a clean starched handkerchief, which she accepted and used. It was surprising how much better she felt for a mop and a blow on Pearson's old hanky and she thanked him.

'This is no place for a lady though.' said Pearson.

'I'm sorry Pearson,' she replied, 'it's just I felt there was something down here, something I thought I saw in the night.' she felt silly saying it but the old man's response surprised her.

'I must confess Miss Peri that first night of your visit here I found you expired in the hallway. I did think I heard burglars in the kitchens and I pursued them down here but I found nothing. I carried you back to your bed chamber for I took you to be another somnambulist, a sleep-walker, like Mistress Farnsworth.'

'No Pearson, I'm not like Rachel, I'm not like her at all...'

Looking at the floor Peri noticed they were standing in a thin layer of cellar dust and footprints. Some were obviously the servant's, hurried boot steps and Pearson's large leather soled shoes but across them all were outsized oblong patches. The same imprints she had seen at the old dye-works. The imprints of a dream? Peri didn't know what to think and swung the lamp to follow them.

'Look Pearson they go round the corner, towards the Sherry...'

'And straight into a wall Miss Peri.' said Pearson.

'You knew about them already then?'

'I had assumed some of the more junior staff were playing a practical joke on me.' 

'But no one owned up?'

'No.' 

'Let's have a look at this wall then?'

'It's just a wall Miss!'

'We shall see Pearson, I haven't known the Doctor this long without learning how to spot a concealed door and a secret passageway you know, lead on Pearson, lead on.'

* * *

The Doctor awoke in better spirits. His housekeeper brought him some tea and he tucked into her sausages with relish. It wasn't until he had dressed to go out and was reaching for his coat that he noticed the syringe sitting in the bowl. The empty phial and knotted leather belt told him all he needed to know. He had injected morphine last night. His good mood and hearty condition were only due to submitting to the drug which controlled him, not resolve and moral fibre. Had he only dreamed his virtuous abstention? He knew then he had crossed the line from managing his addiction into self delusion and dependence. And if he could have imagined his virtue last night what else was a convenient fantasy? He stopped himself from thinking about Alice and set out for a brisk walk around the block.

As he passed the tailors shop he felt a sudden impulse to purchase new clothes and went in.

'Good morning and how may I help you?' said the assistant.

'I would like to purchase,' the Doctor suddenly realised he didn't know what he'd come in for, '... ; a new coat please, in this cloth...;' he pointed to a roll of bright tartan material, '... and this,' a bolt of bright green, ' and this. Can you do it?'. He felt elated like he had suddenly discovered something about himself, although for the life of him he could not understand what it was. 'I can pay you in advance,' he tried, somehow this coat was important, '... ;in cash.'. He held out a five pound note, large and monochrome without any embellishments. The tailor clearly didn't see one very often either since his little eyes widened.

The tailor looked at him with a puzzled face, perhaps he was used to rich customers with eccentric tastes, perhaps the Doctor's money spoke louder than propriety. 'Certainly Sir, I can have it ready for you on Wednesday.'

The Doctor thanked the man and left the shop, as he continued down the street he became aware of a figure walking a few paces behind him. It was Inspector Bartlett again, this time flanked by two uniformed policemen.

'Doctor Smith, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of your wife.'

The Doctor suddenly felt very tired and defeated.

* * *

'A trapdoor Pearson, of course!' said Peri. They descended down a rough set of steps and found themselves in another stone room, this time much more ancient, constructed from irregular stone blocks with rough arches and heaps of rubble.

'The old wine vaults?' said Pearson 'But I thought they'd been filled in when Farnsworth Hall was built...;'

'You mean this is part of an older building?' asked Peri.

'Oh yes,' said the flushed butler 'The Farnsworth family goes back centuries, this was once a moated bailey... but this shouldn't be here.'

'Nor should all these.' said Peri lifting the lamp to show him the crates she had found. Each was packed with straw and contained half a dozen metal cylinders. Behind them there was a rough stone passageway leading off into shadows.

'Shall we open one?' suggested Pearson. He picked one up and looked for a cap or seal that would reveal the cannister's contents.

'No.' said Peri 'I don't like the look of them, let's see where this tunnel leads to Pearson.'

'Surely this is no fit pursuit for a lady.' protested Pearson.

'I shall follow the rock passage whether you approve or not Pearson.' said Peri 'So you might as well come along to help me.'

Pearson looked pained to have his loyalties played upon so but he knew his duty to the fair sex and scurried after Miss Brown before her lamplight faded up the tunnel and left him in darkness.

* * *

Grant was forced to rest the stallion on the hill top, it's breath running ragged from flared nostrils and pluming like engine steam in the chill air. Yet the gallop had not soothed the dull ache of his spirit. Why had he spoken so to Peri? Why had he allowed himself to become so close to her when he was betrothed to Rachel? They were such different women, Rachel - distant and delicate, pale, cerebral, charitable, refined, artistic; and Peri - athletic, joyous, out spoken, bright, vivacious. How could he be attracted to both in such different ways? His love for Rachel was pure, platonic, selfless whereas his love for Peri was a strong, physical yearning. He resolved to forget the conflict and abide by the decision he could not even remember making. He brought the whip down hard on the stallions flanks and was riding again, hard, downhill, into oblivion, man and horse thoughtless of all except velocity.

* * *

'Pearson can you hear hoof beats?'

'I'm not sure ma'am, we should be somewhere under the forest by now. We really should turn back and inform Master Grant of this construction!'

'Don't you want to find out where it goes or who built it Pearson?' said Peri, 'You disappoint me, come on!'

The tunnels were wide and high, as if built for a larger form and their sides were rough but showed no sign of having been worked by human tools. They passed easily through limestone and granite without any transition for the differing rocks involved. Water ran down wet rock and the passages made good use of natural faults in the rock following underground streams and caves. It was in just such a section of pot holes that Peri encountered the 'Y' junction.

'Well what do you reckon Pearson? Left or right?'

'Back to the Hall perhaps?'

'Right hand passage it is then. Come on Pearson!'

She gathered up her skirts and stepped through the rock puddles into the unknown, Pearson followed grudgingly.

* * *

Time seemed compressed for the Doctor. He remembered being taken to the police station, signing a confession and standing trial in front of a jury of twelve townsmen, stiff in their dark coats and starched collars. The public gallery full of curious folk from Netherworth. Everything seemed to go so quickly, his defense was a cursory, his plea of innocence easily challenged by Bartlett's testimony and that of Alice's family. The jury returned with a small slip of paper and the judge looked straight at him.

'Doctor Smith the jury has found you guilty of the murder of your wife Alice Smith. I have heard representations from the prosecution and the defense as to the seriousness of your crime and your state of mind. Having considered all the evidence it now falls to me to pass sentence.'

The courtroom was silent as the judge paused. He brought out a small black cap which he placed atop his wig, the public gallery gasped. 'I sentence you to be taken from this court to a place of execution where you are to be hung from the neck until dead in accordance with the laws of capital punishment. Do you have anything to say?'

The Doctor felt dazed, it all felt unreal. 'No your honour.'

'Then proceed.'

The Doctor remembered a ride in a horse drawn van it's windows small and dark. Admission to prison and the condemned cell, a relatively comfortable affair if the warders were to be believed. They offered him a priest but he declined. He could not however refuse his appointment with the executioner. A broad man with slicked back hair, thoroughly professional, he asked the Doctor's weight and entered it in a notebook. A meticulous accountant of death.

On the day of execution the Doctor found himself being walked to a large room which held the scaffold. There was no audience other than the warders, the prison governor and the executioner himself. The man greeted him again and gestured to the trap, a mechanism that would drop him several feet, breaking his neck in the process, severing the spinal cord, strangulation was of secondary importance, the death was instantaneous. There were no last requests, no last meals, no grand speeches, no last words. The Doctor was simply prepared, the noose placed around his neck, adjusted, and a hood placed over his head as a blindfold. There was a long pause, the prison chaplain spoke some words which the Doctor didn't care for, he felt oddly calm, like this wasn't happening to him, except it was.

The trapdoor snapped open, the ground went from under the Doctor's feet and the rope went tight around his neck. Doctor Smith's spine was subjected to an irresistible force and the executioner declared the death penalty had been carried out.

Chapter 8 - Escapades

'Orderly, orderly! Come quick! Mister Doctor's hung himself!' 

The sound of feet clattering against white tiled floor.

'Cut him down man, cut him down!'

Jacoby felt sick, another inmate had taken his own life rather than face whatever haunted Jerusalem's cells and corridors. The Doctor's tall body was unceremoniously lowered to the floor and Jacoby made a cursory examination. The man was dead, his body inert. He gestured to the warders to take the body away and soon the man who had called himself Doctor was being wheeled off towards the mortuary on a trolley.

* * *

Jacoby sat in his draughty office considering the unexpected event of the Doctor's suicide. The man had seemed so unlikely to take his own life. His head began to buzz with migraine headache and he reached into his jacket pocket for powders but his fingers found a small stone there, the one the Doctor had claimed was a talisman.

In the sunlight it looked brighter and the quartz veins gleamed with an inner light, as Jacoby gazed upon it his head cleared and the pain receded. Jacoby turned the stone over in hand and everything came into focus. He could remember other deaths like the Doctor's; strange suicides, unexplained falls, mysterious drownings. None of them had worried him individually and he had written each one off as an isolated incident. What he had never done until now was consider them as a whole, as a chain of murders. Suddenly he remembered his recent nightmare, the dream of the gassed boy William but this time he recalled it as a memory. He gripped the stone in a rigid fist as Rachel's reassuring lies came to him, each time he had suspicions about the deaths he had discussed it with her and she had spun a line about scientific explanation that now stood out as falsehood in the extreme. He stood up and made to run out the office, ride to Farnsworth Hall and confront her.

There was one more thing to recall, one more anomaly he had been blind to. Each time the inmates had been discovered dead there was never any burial. Their bodies were taken to the mortuary and then disappeared, and he had never noticed it. All the paperwork in Jerusalem Hospital was blandly completed without the body ever being inspected, without coffins being filled. What was happening? 

Now Jacoby knew where he was going, he must proceed to the mortuary in haste to make sure that the Doctor's body was safe. He had failed the man in life but he wouldn't let his corpse fall into the hands of the forces that had manipulated Jacoby's own mind. 

* * *

Light shone ahead. The right hand path had only gone a short way and Peri passed the lamp to Pearson as they stepped out into a wide brick housing. In front of them was a large metal presence. Peri went around it and opened the shed doors, more daylight flooded in and they could see a large tractor like machine.  


'The traction engine!' said Pearson, 'The one folks heard in the woods at night. This is where it came from.'

Peri looked out of the shed doors, she had passed it days ago, riding with Grant to see Stevens, another abandoned industrial building to her back then. The track outside led down to the mill works and she remembered the strange atmosphere in the old dye house.

'Pearson, I think someone was making something down there and using this engine to bring it back to this passage and from there to Farnsworth Hall.'

'Yes but what if they come back? What will they do with us?' 

'I think we'll find the answers in the left hand branch of our mysterious tunnels.'

'Oh I hoped you wouldn't say that.'

They re-entered the darkness and worked back to the fork in the passage. This time the tunnel went much farther, there was a gradual gradient and Peri was very aware of the tons of granite above her head. As they ascended Peri started to become aware of sounds behind her, the monotonous tread of heavy footsteps metronomic and echoing off the stone walls. She couldn't be sure if they were miles away or just behind her. Both Peri and Pearson began to step quickly, Pearson's lamp bobbing like a boat in stormy seas. The heavy feet sped up too, now Peri was sure they were being pursued and their ascent turned into a made scramble, Pearson began puffing and falling back behind her. The tunnel became a set of steps hewn straight out of the living rock. Now Peri could feel her heart pounding and breath shortening, Pearson stumbled and fell back on the steps.

'Pearson, keep up with me!' she hissed.

'I'm sorry Peri.' he wheezed.

'We can't stop here.' she pleaded.

'Go on without me.', he pleaded, 'I'll hold onto the light and they won't know you're ahead.'

Peri agreed but knew she was leaving Pearson to an uncertain fate. She bent down and kissed him goodbye and as she turned she thought she could see a tear in his old eyes. The sounds were close know and she started back up the stairs using her hands to feel the walls and taking two or three steps at a time. Whether it was luck or the inhuman regularity with which the steps had been carved Peri avoided slipping on the way up and she knew that if she had tripped she might never have got up again. As she got to the top she became aware of a faint light and came out in a rough cavern, on the far wall was an electric light, a bare bulb behind glass in a steel cage, the sort of bulkhead lights she had seen in the corridors of Jerusalem Hospital.

As she ran towards it her relief was cut by a scream of agony. It was Pearson and Peri somehow knew that his cry was one of death. It burned with intense pain and was suddenly cut short. The footsteps that had followed them began again.

In the centre of the chamber was a large slab with a deep indentation that looked like a gingerbread man. The walls of the chamber showed signs of being worked, they were mostly clay. A large pile of clay had sat in one corner and Peri suddenly had a horrible idea of what went on there.

Fear in her throat Peri ran over to the pile of clay and squatted down behind it in the corner. Feeling exposed still she desperately raked it back on her and the earth spilled eagerly into her face. She was now a muddy head behind a wall of dirt. Anyone giving the earthworks close inspection would see her immediately. She tried to still her panting lungs and concentrated on the exhaled breath like the Doctor's younger incarnation had once taught her. The footsteps lost their echo and she could feel the presence of bodies in the chamber, crossing the floor across from her. She tried to be still but her hands shook with intense fear, she could feel her bladder ache and shut her eyes.

* * *

Rachel swung her legs like a little girl as she sat on the mortuary slab. She could feel Jacoby's mind racing towards her like a hot flame in the night. The Doctor's body could have been returned but this was end game now, the Time Lord was dead and soon his precious body would be consumed by the living clay of the Dark Powers.

Jacoby entered the room, 'Rachel Farnsworth how did you get here? What has happened to the Doctor's body? Don't just sit there staring at me!'

'I'm sorry Jacoby I'm afraid you've become a problem to me.' she replied.

'I should say so, I think you have some explaining to do, once I work out what is true and what is false, you may find yourself on trial for murder.'

'I'll plead insanity.', a wicked gleam in her eye.

'This isn't a game you know.'

'Oh, Jacoby, isn't it?', girlish pouting.

Out of the shadows came two men. 'Orderlies restrain this woman immediately!' barked Jacoby.

The men turned towards him and he could see they had no faces, just crude sockets and blunt noses. He remembered them from the dream he now knew as reality. They held his arms.

'Help! Help me, can you hear me!'

'Jacoby you really are a bore.' she teased the end of his moustache with a dainty finger, 'Don't you know nobody can hear you scream in an asylum? The mortuary echoes so much they won't even know it's you. Not even when you're screaming for unconsciousness.'

Jacoby felt the Golems pulling at his shoulders, his arms taught in their sockets, he resisted and then started to feel bone and muscle tearing. Jacoby began to scream.

* * *

Peri heard the sound of a hidden doorway being opened, the same mechanical rattle she had heard at Farnsworth Hall there was some movement, the sound of something heavy being dragged and then the door closing again, leaving the chamber cold and silent.

Peri waited a few minutes and then got up from the pile, stones and earth spilling off her. She went over to the large sunken slab or mould as she thought of it. Lying inside it was the Doctor, his face empty, his body cold and stiff. She felt for his breath, checked each side of his chest for heartbeats but there was nothing. He was dead.

Here she was deep underground, surrounded by ghastly nightmare giants, desperate to tell him all the strange things she had discovered and now even that hope was destroyed.

She began to weep, large silent tears, welling up deep inside from all the pain and hurt she had suffered since he had embarked on this 'simple errand' for Kariston. Her cheeks flushed with anger and she spoke aloud, 'Stupid, bloody Time Lords, I hate you!'

'Well that isn't much of a welcome back to the land of the living.'

'Doctor?' she looked at the supposed corpse it seemed unchanged, 'Doctor is that you?'

Two twinkling eyes popped open and looked straight at her. 'Well I'm certainly not Dr.Smith from Netherworth. Rachel had me in a dangerous virtuality there. Only one way out, play along and feign death. The old respiratory bypass does have it's uses.'

There was a sudden distorted scream echoing down the passageway ahead.

'What the hell am I lying in?' asked the Doctor.

'A Golem mould naturally!' she said recovering some of her composure.

'A what? Oh those awful great homunculi of hers, so this is how they're madeQuick help me out.'

'Yes.' she replied, helping him out of the slab, rubbing life back into the Doctor's numbed legs, 'There's a ready supply of clay earth here.'

'Clay's all very well for body mass but where do they get a supporting framework Peri?' asked the Doctor, massaging a foot which had gone to sleep.

'You mean like the skeleton?' she ventured.

'Oh dear Peri,' he whispered 'I think we can guess where they get that now.'

'From the dead of Jerusalem!' they turned to find Rachel standing at the doorway flanked by her ungodly servants. The Golems glistened with a ruddy sheen that might be fresh blood.

'Quick Doctor this way!' she made for the passage back but found it blocked by another Golem.

'You are more resourceful than I expected.' said Rachel coolly.

'Thank-you.' said both the Doctor and Peri in unison.

'I should have checked you were properly dead.' she said eyeing the Doctor.

'I'm often underestimated.' he said smugly.

'I should have kept you under proper control.' she said looking at Peri.

'Thanks a bundle.'

'You seemed very keen to see how I make my Golems.' Rachel walked around the mould, 'Perhaps Peri would care to help me in a little demonstration.'

'Oh no.' Peri recoiled from the slab.

Rachel gestured to the Golem shapes, one of them advanced on Peri.

'I thought you wanted me?' boomed the Doctor standing between Peri and the clay hulk.

'Oh I do Doctor, don't feel rejected but I just want to see you suffer as your companion here dies in the process.' replied Rachel.

'You really are another shade of evil aren't you?' spat the Doctor.

'Oh you can't goad me, Doctor, I've made my mind up.'

'No, no, get off me!' Peri cried as she was pulled and twisted towards the slab. The two great earthen arms swinging her bodily into the waiting space. Peri tried to jump straight back out but the other Golem was already pouring heavy clay onto her limbs. The third creature restrained the Doctor who strained impotently at it's locked arms.

'Rachel can't you see this is inhuman?' cried Peri but more clay was being poured. It splashed around her head, heavy cold and wet. Crushing her body with it's bulk. Peri felt herself scream as clay began to pour onto her head. Blocking her nostrils and choking her as she spat it from her mouth but she could feel the weight building and she gasped fighting back the inevitable asphyxiation.

Chapter 9 - Obstacles

Suddenly Peri felt sick and the room moved, her perspective was different now. She was standing over by the Doctor now and it was Rachel in the Golem mould the heavy clay dropping onto her black silk dress.

'Quick Peri, while she's distracted!' said the Doctor.

'But Doctor?' she blurted.

'How?' he suggested, taking one arm from out of the Golem's hold, 'Well, I managed to learn a few tricks from Rachel while I was under her power.' he added pulling the other arm free, 'I take it this tunnel leads to Farnsworth Hall?'.

'Well yes..' she was close to tears with relief.

'Let's go then!' he pulled on his coat and headed off down the limestone passage, 'Time, tide and the Dark Powers wait for no man!'

From beneath the smothering pile of liquid clay a hand emerged and a woman's face lift itself upright from under the mass. She spat and screamed one word.

'Doooctooor!!!!'

* * *

Grant was pacing in the gardens wondering what had become of everybody. Rachel had given the servants a special holiday in lieu of May Day and so everyone had gone into Netherfield for the Wakes. Suddenly he heart a sound from the kitchens and he went in to find Peri and the Doctor desperately trying to catch their breath.

'Grant, so glad we caught you.' puffed the Doctor, 'Listen carefully we have a lot to explain.'

'Doctor, you're well again, the regeneration has stabilised at last then, did Jacoby discharge you?' Grant asked.

'Only in spirit, Grant, I'm afraid he's dead.'

'Dead? How?'

'Murdered,' said Peri her wind now back, 'by Rachel's Golems.'

'Rachel's what? I can't believe this Peri, has he drawn you into one of his elaborate fantasies again?' demanded Grant.

'No Grant it's true and the Doctor never was ill. Rachel has psychic powers that can enslave people's minds. She had Jacoby doing her bidding and she almost killed the Doctor.' Peri pleaded.

'But such a weak lady how could she commit these acts?'

'She doesn't have to she makes you destroy yourself' interjected the Doctor.

'Or she has her Golem's do the work like poor Pearson.' Peri was close to tears again.

'Pearson, you mean he's also'

'Yes, dead! Rachel is a vessel for the Dark Ones Grant,' announced the Doctor, 'and they revel in death and destruction. They can feed on Time Lord energies but what they really desire is carnage!'

'I refuse to believe this!' cried Grant, 'Soon Rachel will return with Jacoby to take you back to Jerusalem and Pearson will server supper and'

The words drained from his mouth as a perverse vision stepped up from the cellars. Rachel Farnsworth emerged covered in clay from head to foot. If this wasn't bizarre enough her face was a rictus of feral energy and her eyes burnt with a fierce desperation.

'But it's all true Grant.' she cried, shaking the dripping clay from her arms.

'Rachel?!'

'Yes, Grant, it's me.'

'What have they done to you Rachel?'

'It wasn't us Grant,' said Peri 'It was her, that's just how we escaped from her Golem things!'

'Rachel, tell me this isn'true!' screeched Grant.

'I'm sorry Grant,' said Rachel 'but this charade has to end.'

Behind her two Golem creatures emerged from the cellar their blank faces even more terrible in the light of day.

Rachel spoke crisply, 'I'm afraid that everything Peri and the Doctor have told you is true.'

'The murders, those creatures, the nightmares'

'All me I'm afraid,' said Rachel with a smile. 'Serving the Dark Ones you brought back into the universe.'

'No!' Grant cradled his head in his hands.

'Yes I'm afraid so Grant.'

'But our love?'

'In a sense the Dark Powers brought us together. Did you never wonder how I came to meet you that first day on the moors? Did you never wonder how I took to all your science so easily? And where you did have doubts I eased them out. I created our love within you Grant. You are mine!'

'Excuse me,' said the Doctor holding up his finger 'Excuse me, but what do the Dark Ones want with you both? They aren't usually known for their sense of romance.'

'Only villains who are very sure of themselves explain their plans to their enemies Doctor.' stated Rachel.

'Well we already know about the cannisters under the cellars, some kind of bomb perhaps?' blurted Peri.

'Phosgene to be exact.' said the Doctor 'I was treated to a very public demonstration of it's effects at Jerusalem Hospital. One of the most despicable agents of death this century has devised so far.'

'The airship!' chimed Peri 'You're planning to use the airship to drop gas bombs!'

'Quite so, it was very easy to implant the idea for the project with Grant. He's so receptive to manipulation.' said Rachel.

'But what do you gain from all this?' whispered Grant.

'Gain? Gain? The Dark Powers have no wish to gain anything. They can only destroy.' said the Doctor looking accusingly at Rachel. 'You planned to spread death and panic, yes?'

'Absolutely correct, Doctor. Beginning with the major urban concentrations of this century. Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Birmingham, Manchester'

'Crippling England's industrial base, causing the death of millions and for what?' asked the Doctor.

'For pleasure, for entertainment, for sport. I thought you Time Lords would understand, isn't that why your race sits and watches the time streams? To enjoy the theatre of hate and death. Or do you give it some grand name like 'The March Of History'?' Rachel paused for breath, for once there was no response. 'In a few years this country will enter one of the bloodiest and most wasteful wars in human history. If I can nudge it into conflict earlier my masters will feed on all that death and carnage. They will grow strong and this will become their domain forever.'

The Doctor was stunned but thinking rapidly, 'The airship, the man on the clapham omnibus associates it with Germany, the Zeppelin family, H.G.Wells has already given them to expect war from the air, they'll demand satisfaction, Jehosaphat! Her crazy plan just might work!'

'Thankyou Doctor. My masters value efficiency. Minimum historical intervention for maximum pain and destruction. It's a winning formula with them.'

'But we'll fight you Rachel.' said Grant boldly.

'Oh, and I've had gotten away with it if hadn't been for you!' said Rachel mockingly. 'Sorry Grant but you have no idea how strong I am. The Doctor here pulled off a clever trick on me back in the cave but I will not be fooled again.'

'What is she talking about?' asked Grant.

'Delusion, madness and phantasm. Rachel here is mistress of them all.' replied the Doctor.

'Isn't there something we can do?' asked Peri.

'No I'm afraid not.' said Rachel stepping out of the ruined dress. She peeled of her sodden undergarments and stood naked before them as matter of factly as if she was the life study for a class of art students. She looked at Grant and whispered, 'Good night sweet prince.'

The air became heavy and movement was like through invisible treacle. The room span and blurred

* * *

And then the Princess awoke and it had all been a nasty dream. Peri sat up between sheets of the finest silk and the bedstead was arrayed with garlands of sweet smelling flowers. Sunshine streamed through the stained glass window and she sat up. There was a knock at the door and in came her lady in waiting, curtsying and carrying a beautiful dress of royal purple trimmed with ermine. She struggled to remember the woman's name but could only think that it began with 'R'.

'Good morning Princess Peri, I've prepared your dress as instructed, for today is a very special day.'

'Really?' said Peri groggily, 'What day is it?'

'Why the day you are to be married to Sir Grant.' replied the maid laughing.

* * *

The Doctor rode the horse hard. He was riding in full armour and the sweat soaked into the coarse undergarments but his mind was on his destination. The moors rushed past under steel shod hooves and the horse showed no signs of tiring, he passed little hamlets of mud huts and frightened looking serfs but he had no time to stop. The moors lessened and he started to descend. Ahead rose the castle's square towers and he knew that inside villainous Grant lusted over his Princess, spinning his lies around her mind, taking her love from him, dazzling her with riches and courtly manners but he would show her what treachery lay at the varlet's heart. The castle was still some miles off but the Doctor put his hand down to his belt and felt the hilt of his sword. It gleamed in the sun as he drew it and he became one pure shaft of light striking at his enemy, filled with righteous anger and a mission to set a fair Princess free.

* * *

Peri stepped out the rose scented bath waters and dried herself of clean pink towels held out by demure hand maidens. The water seemed to slip off her and she stepped towards a dress of whitest silk and attentive hands pulled it round her. Now she really felt like a Princess, there was a headpiece and veil and two tiny dogs trotted beside her on ribbons. A vision of courtly beauty she descended the grand stairway of the castle and was met by Sir Grant, a fine masculine figure in silver chain-mail and a light tabard displaying his coat of arms.

'Princess Peri, you dazzle us with your presence.' he said formally.

'Enchanted Sir Grant.'

Behind her was the King, his advisors and the other Knights of the realm, she was truly honoured by such a distinguished honour guard. The great hall hung with Spring flowers and greenery, the servants all wore the bright colours of festivity and it was a beautiful sunny day. The Arch-Bishop took a step forward.

'It is a happy day when a man takes unto himself a wife, and none could be so fair as the Princess Peri here'

There was a noise of horse shoes skittering over cobblestones from outside and a cloud went in front of the sun.

'Is there anyone present who knows just reason why Sir Grant should not marry Princess Peri, if so speak now or forever hold thy peace'

'I DO!' boomed a voice Peri thought she recognised. 

Turning to the back of the hall, everyone was aghast at the sight of a Knight in full battle armour, sword in hand dripping with the blood of the guard he had just run through to gain entrance to the great hall.

'End this mockery!', shouted the bloody Knight, 'The Princess is mine already and that blaggard Grant's sorceries cannot hold her against my sword!'

The King stepped forward, 'Are you drunk man? The Princess has been betrothed to Grant these three months now. How can you have a claim to her?'

'By my right as a Lord of Tardis, by right of precedence, by justice! Grant took her away from me while I was cast into a foul dungeon by his treacheries! I demand satisfaction!'

'Then you shall have it!' said Grant, striding forward, throwing the scabbard off his long sword blade, 'I have had enough of your lies and delusions Doctor, Peri is mine by her own free will, she merely follows her own heart and all you can bring to her is rage and hate.'

Grant lunged forward driving his sword at the Doctor's head, the Doctor parried and beat him back. Grant swung again feinting and then swinging from the left. The Doctor caught the blow but only just and Grant was driving another straight slice at his neck as he straightened. The Doctor fell back and Grant's sword skittered down his breast plate, singing metal on metal, gouging a long gash through the dragon rampant design. The Doctor took the opportunity to make a crude jab at Grant's side, caught chain-mail but the wicked blade bit into Grant's left arm and drew blood. Grant cried out in pain and the Doctor bellowed 'Yield!'.

With a shout Grant responded furious, a barrage of battering blows, struck out at this enemy who dared to destroy all he held dear. The Doctor held his sword defensively, struggling to meet each blow Grant threw at him, but the man's onslaught was such that his parries were sloppy, his blade was forced back and a slice caught his sword hand despite his gauntlets. His sword fell and blood spilled through fingers. Grant brought the point of his sword up to the Doctors throat for the coup de grace, he did it slowly so that all could see he had won fairly. The Doctor swallowed and knew he was meant to pray but something suddenly felt wrong about the whole situation. He looked towards Peri and caught her with his gaze as Grant's sword moved back.

Chapter 10 - Appearances

The dress had been made in Paris, Paris - France, and was very, very red. The silk dupion glistened in the light and the neckline hung magnificently from her shoulders. It had been made for elegant ladies at elaborate balls to parade and present in. It was the perfect garment for mass murder and wholesale destruction. She stood up form the dressing table and made her way down the hall stairs, watching in mirrors as the dress swished over the steps. As she passed the trio of figures in the dining room she paused to watch their inert bodies twitching, involved in the struggle of the delusion she had created, something picked from Peri's mind, a girlish school-yard fantasy even Peri had forgotten.

Rachel pulled the inert figure of Grant towards her, he was like a shop window dummy and his eyes looked into the far away distance that was through a solid wall. She put her heavily made up lips to his and locked him in a messy parody of a kiss. When she withdrew her tongue was still playing with his dumb mouth, his cheek suddenly went into spasm, Rachel let go and left the room. 'Good-bye Grant, you would have made a passable husband but I'm afraid that everyone's got to die today.' The door slammed hard and there was the fragile sound of a glass pane cracking.

Outside Rachel Farnsworth was met by the Golem creatures. They escorted her to the steam carriage like some leaden honour guard. The carriage hissed, standing in the drive, it's wheels gouging divots in the lawn. Rachel sat on the passenger side her legs on display through the open door, somewhere between a duchess on a public visit and an expensive prostitute sitting in a window. She had never been more happy than now, she knew this for a fact because the Dark Ones told her so.

* * *

Grant held the sword at his foeman's throat, ready to execute him with one efficient thrust when the Princesses screams cut through his fury. 'Grant! Stop, can't you see it's the Doctor!' 

'Yes, I remember this is the Doctor but his foul deeds are so many, only blood can clear that dishonour.' he was panting, his mind clearing.

'He hasn't done anything Grant because this isn't real, none of this is, it's all just a fantasy, a fairy tale' she was almost crying now.

'She's right' said the stranger she called the Doctor, holding his bloodied hand.

'My lady?' said Grant.

'Grant, put your sword away and let the Doctor go.' 

'But my lady, he is without honour'

'Oblige me in this Grant, please.'

He removed his sword and took a step back, suddenly aware of the great fatigue the combat had imposed upon him. To his surprise the Doctor began to get up but as he did so he began unbuckling and casting away the black armour he wore.  


'Can't you see how unrealistic this is Grant?' he said 'Would any knight really wear such heavy armour as this? Look at it, it's completely over elaborate and over decorated! Dragon's head epaulets indeed!'. The Doctor now stood exposed, half his protection thrown carelessly aside, it would be easy to dispatch him now, the man was obviously a fool.  


'Don't you remember Grant? Gallifrey, the Capitol, Rassilon?'

'Yes, those names are familiar far away kingdoms perhaps? a famous King?' Grant felt confused the man was right yet the more he thought about the names the more unreal the felt.

'What sorcery is this?' asked Grant.

Princess Peri stepped forward and spoke 'A spell, Sir Grant, a spell cast by an evil witch you should know as Rachel. She has bewitched us all. Put down the sword, mortal weapons cannot fight her.'

At last she was making sense at last, the very name Rachel struck a deep resonance inside of his knightly breast that swelled to a pain of love and betrayal and he remembered Rachel clearly, it was truly she he loved not the Princess. And the Doctor? He was Peri's friend and mentor, and his friend too. Anger grew in Grant's heart as he saw his actions of a moment ago as those of a child's string puppet. There was a clatter of finely honed metal on quarried stone.

'What do we have to do to break this spell then?' he asked after the sword was out of his hand.

'We've got to break the pattern of the illusion, Grant.' said the Doctor, 'This castle and everything in it are false, unrealities conjured up by Rachel.'

'Then let's pull them down stone by stone.' shouted Grant.

'No!' said the Doctor, 'Violence is the hallmark of this virtuality, just as despair was the keynote of my earlier entrapment by Rachel. We need some kind of activity to keep us from falling into the archetypes assigned to us, something entirely incompatible with Mallory's Victorian vision of chivalrous Arthurian England.'

'We could sing our way out of here' said Peri flippantly.

'Brilliant Peri, we need a song that works with the scenario but also against it. Something modern yet profound. Something we all three know by heart.'

It was at times like this that Peri's mind went blank or came up with absurd little ditties like 'Itsy Witsy Yellow Polka Dot Bikini'. Suddenly Grant burst out in a light baritone that surprised her.

'And did those feet in ancient times, Walk upon England's mountains green?'

'Brilliant Grant! Blake's masterpiece, a preface to Milton adapted by Parrie Sing it Peri, sing it now!'

'And was the holy Lamb of God, On England's pleasant pastures seen?'

From deep below them came a groaning rumble like the door of hell being opened.

'And did the Countenance Divine, shine forth upon our clouded hills?'

From behind the Doctor Peri saw looming shadowy shapes ascending the stairs. Still he sang in a booming attempt at a tenor. Peri forced herself to go on with the charade and sing the hymn in a quavering voice.

'And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these satanic mills?'

Behind the Doctor she saw a terrifying sight, a warrior's helm mounted upon a grinning skull. A coat of chain mill hanging upon an animated skeleton, advancing slowly up them.

'Just ignore it Peri, they're not real, only the song is, sing it now!' hissed the Doctor.

'Bring me my bow of burning gold, Bring me my arrows of desire.'

Something dry and grasping dropped onto her shoulder. She could see it was a skeletal hand, golden rings hanging off it's boney digits that twitched towards her throat.

'Bring me my spear, O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire.'

The last verse came out almost as a scream as she forced herself to look at Grant only to see that he had a grim companion locking it's arm around his neck.

'I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.'

The grisly hand was getting weaker, falling away, she saw the Doctor's skeleton warrior stumble and fall, it's knee bone breaking under the weight of armour.

'Till we have built Jerusalem, In England's green and pleasant land.'

* * *

They found themselves back in the dining room at Farnsworth Hall, the Doctor was first to act.

'At least the airship's still there.' he said looking out the window, 'We've got to get to the hanger and prevent her taking off!'

'Yes,' said Peri looking in the same direction, 'but first we have to get past them.'

Grant rubbed his lips and wondered about the smell of perfume in his nostrils. He went over to the window to see what Peri meant. Coming up the tidily clipped lawns was at least half a dozen of the Golem things. They lumbered slowly but inexorably they were coming closer. Grant started to make out the contours of their crudely moulded clothes and the mocking features of their 'faces', each one the same as the other.

'Quick, to the front entrance.' said the Doctor, and they ran back through the hallway. As Grant reached for the handle his wrist was lacerated by breaking glass fragments. A Golem's hand and arm smashed through the glass and wood frame, obviously without Rachel's direct guidance they were of limited intelligence, but they were massively strong. Grant recoiled back and Peri suppressed a cry as the arm and shoulder worked at the framework, Edwardian doors were certainly well made but it only bought them seconds as the headed back to the french windows to find more Golems advancing in. The Doctor was fighting for breath, desperately trying to think.

'Grant!'

'Yes Doctor.'

'Rachel drew her powers from you tapped them off during the night.' A cracked pane as the first Golem walked into a window.

'Yes, I think we've established that Doctor!'

'So her control of the Golems is shared with you.' Sounds of breaking china in the hallway.

'But I haven't a clue how to do it, and my mental reserves were squandered fighting you in that ridiculous castle!'

'Yes but I have an idea what techniques she's using and a little psychic power myself.' said the Doctor, 'Together, together we can take control of them.'  


'Well, you two had better do whatever it is quickly.' said Peri, the doors and windows were now twisted metal and broken smithereens on the floor now. The Golems advanced as one forming a rough circle around them, arms raised they moved in silence.   


The Doctor and Grant locked arms across their shoulders like Rugby players going into a scrum but their expressions were of intense concentration. The Doctor's brow furrowed with exertion, Grant more relaxed, transfixed on some task that seemed infinitely unimportant to the immediate physical danger she could feel moving nearer. 'Please no,' she said to herself 'don't let me die at the hands of something with no mind and no face'. The smell of dug earth and raw clay was all about her and she felt a scream of sheer terror building in the centre of her chest. A glove-like hand reached closer

and patted her on the head. 'Easy, Peri, easy.' said Grant. The Golems stood still.

'Alright Grant, now let's turn them.' said the Doctor, there was a pause and the circle of giants pivoted and turned in unison.

'It's going to be a harder getting them all out the doors Doctor.'

'Right let's divide them, you take left of centre I'll take the right.'

'Done, Doctor, I'll have mine at the hanger before yours.' Peri couldn't believe it, they were like little boys racing toy cars, they had only been in danger of bodily dismemberment a moment ago and now they were playing with their new power over the Golems. As she calmed, the Golems started to file out the holes they had made in Farnsworth Hall.

'Faster, we've got to get them there faster.'

'I'm not sure they were made for running, Doctor.'

'Well let's try a jog then.'

'Outrageous!' cried Peri, tension draining from her into a fit of uncontrollable laughter at the sight of the lumpen clay figures raising their legs and arms in a rough parody of jogging. The bloated forms yomped off down the lawns leaving deep footprints as they impacted in the soft turf, but they were moving quickly now. Soon the Doctor and Grant had to move after them, arms still locked, like a bizarre group of athletes training for some surreal championship. Peri was looking forward to seeing Rachel's reaction at their arrival. Just as she thought this she heard the airship engines being cranked.

'Hurry, for God's sake hurry!'

As they approached the airship hanger Peri saw Rachel's Golem servants were still loading phosgene gas bombs into the gondola cabin. She breathed a sigh of relief when one of the Doctor's troop of Golems lost it's head. The clay homunculus just shattered, a split second later Peri heard the gun shot. Rachel was firing at them with a long barrelled rifle. Abruptly they took cover.

'This is no good Doctor, she's going to keep us pinned down till she's finished loading the ship!' said Grant from behind a tree.

Peri looked from behind the tree and saw the rifle resting on the side of the steam carriage, again her ears ached with the percussion of another shot, this time raising splinters from the tree the Doctor stood behind.

'The Golems, Grant! The Golems' said the Doctor excitedly, 'Line them up shoulder to shoulder, and we can advance behind them!'

'Brilliant, like a human shield,' replied Grant, 'or rather an inhuman shield!'

'But Doctor!' said Peri, 'She's just taken the head off this one!'

'Who needs a head?' said the Doctor and sure enough the headless Golem continued moving and joined the rest in a wall of solid, earthen bodies.

'Company advance!' squawked the Doctor in an impersonation of a Drill Sergeant and the Golem army closed on the airship. 

* * *

Rachel's fired the rifle several times and the sound of splintering pottery echoed back as Golems lost a head or a hand but the damage was minimal. Her Golem servants were loading the last case of phosgene though and she sensed the time for departure had come. As the Time Lord's Golems approached she threw down the rifle and ran to the gondola. Once there she dispatched the Golems still under her control to fight the rebel creatures. Yards from the airship they clashed and huge leaden arms locked and swung as the Golem factions exchanged slow, devastating blows. Rachel could now concentrate on throttling the engines and the airship rose with a roar of power. 'Praise be to the internal combustion engine', she rejoiced. Then there was a sharp jolt and she fell to the floor.

* * *

'The guy ropes,' shouted Grant. 'She's forgotten to cast them off!'

'We've still got those clay monsters between us and her though.' said Peri.

'Let's try another tactic.' said the Doctor. He renewed his arm lock with Grant and the Golem combatants slowed and were still. One by one Rachel's Golems turned and began back for the airship. Each time they met one of their companions still 'loyal' to the Dark Powers they grappled and there was some kind of silent conversion and another clay giant joined the throng advancing on the hanger site.

* * *

Rachel gunned the engines again but this time with the airship braced against the guy ropes, the securing lines strained tight. Gradually the tethers snapped under the force or the stakes they were tied to were wrenched free from the ground. She was free! Free to kill them all very, very soon.

Yet again she fell as the gondola cabin jolted with a shock. A deep range grew in her as her dark companions screamed with frustration. Looking down she saw the Golem creatures, now wholly dominated by the Time Lord's combined willpower, holding the ends of the guy ropes, their massive earthen weight keeping her tied down. Gradually some were hauling in their cables, working hand over hand with incredible strength. Rachel knew the Dark Powers had made the creatures well but now they were a hindrance and it was time to rid herself of them.

Peri cheered as the Golems snatched the ends of the ascending ropes. The heavy hemp coils whipped in their hands like live snakes with forces that would have dislocated the shoulder of a man. They tightened their huge hands and gained a grip on the ropes without feeling the friction that created a faint burning smell. The airship stopped rising, it was held, Peri felt a surge of triumph. Down on the ground in front of her was the rifle, it must have been cast aside by Rachel in her flight or fallen from the airship door. Peri picked it up and waved it gleefully, Grant and the Doctor saw this and ran forward. Something was wrong with the Golem creatures, although they still held the guy ropes, they were growing slow and agitated. Slowly the Golems began to disintegrate, clay fell away in great chunks and the substance their bodies started loosing it's cohesion. Peri couldn't really say they melted but she felt a strange feeling of pity as the creatures of nightmare collapsed into heaps of earth and bones. Rachel was killing them and they gave out a low muted sound, somewhere between a groan and a scream. It was the only sound she had ever heard them make, the sound of death.

The airship rose up and flew slowly away.

Chapter 11 - Reckonings

Rachel felt the airship slip lose in the hands of the Golems and she pressed home her mental command. The Golems were dispensable now. She rammed home their destruction, reclaiming the power resources invested in each one of the homunculi. The ship moved slowly up and the engine tone changed from the fighting whine to a triumphant drone. She was free of those Time Lords and had the means to bring about an orgy of death and pain. Rachel arched her back, her jet black hair flying behind her in the wind, and let out an ecstatic shout of victory. It was tinged with the howl of the Dark Ones within her and on the ground Peri heard it as a distorted, inhuman scream. She was flying, screaming vengeance, she brought the airship around and headed for Netherworth. The agonised deaths of the villagers and her servants would make her first offering to the Dark Ones.

* * *

'Ow! Oof! Aah!' said the Doctor his body striking the tops of several large trees. Grant was fairing better on the other guy rope and was desperately shinning up it towards the gondola. He could hear Rachel's voice even above the wind and she seemed to be laughing, or was it screaming? He looked down and saw the Doctor struggling to get a bird's nest off his face, small broken eggs dropping into the trees below. They were rising inexorably away from the ground and he knew there was no turning back. He moved on up.

* * *

Rachel picked up the phosgene bomb. It was crude yet effective. She had seen at Jerusalem the terror and suffering it provoked and relished her master's pleasure in it.

'Rachel!', it was Grant clambering in at the door to the gondola.

'Grant!' she hissed.

'Rachel, you don't have to do this. They are using you, like they used me to enter this world. You have a choice.'

'That is where you are wrong Time Lord. I have no choice, I am darkness, with out the Dark Ones Rachel is a helpless child but together we are a goddess!'

'The goddess of death Rachel. Is that what you really want to be? I thought you loved me we could be so happy can't you see that?'

'I never loved you Grant! I just let the little girl fool you with her affections. I was inside laughing at your fawning attempts to please me, at your pathetic love!'

Grant took the phosgene bomb out of her hands and bent to kiss her, his lips touched her soft cheek.

'Rachel, I love you.' he said.

Her boot kicked him off balance and she laughed, 'Maggot, how did you think to fool me.'

He sprawled on the deck, crippled with pain, 'Rachel please.'

He suddenly caught sight of the Doctor's coat against the side windows, she immediately followed his gaze and saw the Doctor's orange spats disappearing onto the roof. Pain broke out in his temple, she had kicked him in the head and he felt himself blacking out.

* * *

Peri gripped the hunting rifle in the posture she had seen her father strike on irregular deer shooting trips and sighted on the airship above her. She had seen Grant climb inside the cabin and she couldn't pull the trigger knowing he was in there. The airship gracefully turned in the sky coming back towards her and as it shifted she saw the unmistakable colours of the Doctor's coat moving up onto the gondola roof, below him a sudden blaze or red, it was Rachel climbing after him with an unexpected strength and speed. Her silk dress made her look like a giant red bat bearing down on the Doctor.

* * *

Rachel climbed out of the gondola window, victory singing in her ears. Her dark companions were as one, delighting in the extravaganza she presented, their unearthly voices soared like a choir of orgasmic demons into a refrain Bach would have killed for.

* * *

The village of Netherworth was enjoying a bright May day holiday with all the delights of a traditional English fair. There were simple swing boats, coconut shies and a carousel driven by a brightly painted traction engine. The servants from Farnsworth hall were all attired in their Sunday best and as ever the menfolk made for the beer tent. There the local parson was, slightly less than soberly, proposing a toast.

'... and though they are not present I would like to say a hearty thank you to Rachel Farnsworth and her Master Grant for giving this village a very special holiday. To their good health, God save the King and ...'

A cloud moved across the crowd out of a blue sunlit sky, watchful eyes looked up to see an extraordinary sight. Grant's airship, the gossip of the village for a year now, so long that public house speculation had grown tired of it, the mighty craft circled over the estate it's white canvas sides bright white in the sunlight. The crowd cheered.

'...Three cheers for the Farnsworth Airship, Hip Hip..(Hooray) Hip Hip! (Hooray!!) HIP HIP (HOORAAYYY!!!)'

* * *

The Doctor climbed higher onto the roof of the airship, for a moment he almost thought he could hear cheering but discounted it and continued up, brushing up onto the fabric of the gas-bag. As he did so he felt a sharp tug at his foot and looked down to see Rachel's hand, clawlike, pulling him off balance. He kicked out and she hissed like a banshee, then sunk her death deep into the soft flesh off his ankle.

* * *

Grant came to in and dragged himself up from the metal floor. Blood was coursing from a head wound and his vision was creased with red clouds. Rachel had damaged him badly but with a desperate burst of energy he grasped the controls and sent the airship in a curve towards the lake.

* * *

Rachel fell back as the airship shifted axis and her red dresses flew out in a flourishing festoon behind her. The Doctor grunted in pain as he caught the metal strut and slid down the polished roof. Rachel was hanging onto his leg. Her weight dropped him onto the side of the ship and it started the keel over. He could feel her shifting her grip. He looked down to see her trying to get at the battery of phosgene bombs inside the ship. He shook but she held him tight as a vice while her frantic efforts to bring death to them and everyone for a hundred miles twisted his foot savagely. The Doctor felt he had little choice, 'Now Peri! Shoot now!'.

* * *

Peri heard the Doctor's cries and remembered his words. Doubts raced through her mind for what seemed like an age. Was this really necessary? Did she really have to destroy the three people she cared about most to save the world? Then she thought about the phosgene and the hideous death it provoked and her finger hardened on the trigger. She took aim at the red dot and squeezed. The recoil hit her hard in the shoulder and the discharge deafened her for a second but when she looked back at the airship she could see nothing different. She sighted and fired again, thinking this time of Rachel's murderous plans; her cruel, callous manner and the way she had deceived and deluded them all. She fired again and this time saw a flash, she must have hit an engine since oily smoke began to appear, then flames. Suddenly the whole elliptical bulk of the airship was burning, the canvas was engulfed in flame and she tried to concentrate on the tiny gondola as it dropped towards the ground but soon the entire field of her vision was a wall of fire. She felt it's humid warmth as tears welled up. 

* * *

The Doctor saw the bullet strike the engine housing and fuel spilled out and filled the air with a gasoline stench. 'Keep firing Peri!' he shouted.

'I will kill you Time Lord!' spat Rachel, clawing her way up his body, her nails digging into his flesh.

'Not.. if.. we.. go.. together.' gasped the Doctor. Their eyes met and the Doctor saw doubt amongst the flames at the centre of her pupils. At last he had the Dark Powers worried but now he had to play through or loose the advantage.

He let go.

* * *

As they fell though the air, flames started to lance down at Rachel, warming her face and setting her hair alight, she laughed out loud with excitement. Soon the ground would come up to embrace her in it's bone-crushing flatness. She would no longer have to serve the Dark Powers but they would delight in her death and that of the Time Lords. Rachel said 'Good-bye' to them and felt herself struck.

* * *

As he fell the Doctor arched down and struck a crude diving pose. He braced himself and caught sight of Rachel in his peripheral vision. Falling back first, flailing like a child on a swing, he even thought she might have been laughing. Then he struck the water and felt himself descend deep into the depths of the lake. He held onto the breath he had drawn and forced himself to work against gravity. It was icy cold and darkness was all around him. He moved his arms and felt a sleeve catch against something sharp, possibly a tree branch or an old broken bedstead that had been thrown in the lake decades ago. He pulled, it held him tight. He looked around for the surface and a yellow red glow appeared above, it was the airship burning, with Grant at the helm to the last. He started, slowly and painfully to ease off his coat. He kicked, it came away and he started swimming for the surface. Then as he swam he saw a trace of red, like a brightly coloured carp. His lungs burning with effort, he swam towards it, as he suspected it was Rachel Farnsworth, her lifeless body floating under the water, her face passive and her neck at an odd angle. He had never stopped to think how beautiful she had been till now, no wonder Grant had loved her. Quickly her caught her under the chin and kicked upwards.

* * *

Peri sat by the banks of the lake and cried into the folds of her dress. The flames were gone now, the smoke hung heavy in the sky. The remains of the airship lay partially on the far side of the lake but much of the ship had entered the water. She prayed that either the combustion or the collision with water had taken the phosgene gas away. If the smoke clouds were about to choke her she welcomed the death they brought. Grant must be dead and the Doctor had still not emerged from the lake. She sobbed until a desperate ached grew in her chest and she felt like she had no more despair left.

Suddenly in the calm she heard a splashing. Looking up she saw a swimmer, it was the Doctor and he was towing something, something red. It was the Doctor and Rachel. As she helped the exhausted Time Lord onto the bank she picked up the gun and held it over the woman's prone body. Peri waited for her eyes to open again with their evil embers and the unnatural energy to animate Rachel into a leap straight at her.

'No Peri, put down the gun,' said the Doctor, panting for breath. 'She won't be getting back up again.'

Peri dropped the gun and found herself crying again, this time against the sodden shirt of the Doctor. His wet arms held her in a broad hug and she remembered little else other than the shouts of men from the village as they ran across the green lawns dressed for the May fair, flowers bobbing in their buttonholes.

'It's all over, Peri.' said the Doctor.'It's finally all over.'

Chapter 12 - Endings

Peri pushed the invalid chair around the lakeside walk and turned her eyes to the scorched stretch of grass where the airship had crashed. The twisted steel frame had been cleared away now and all that was left was the painful memory of Grant's death. She had guessed he was in love with Rachel but still couldn't believe he'd given his life to keep her safe from the Dark Powers. In the wicker shell of the chair Rachel's head lolled to the side and she looked blankly up at Peri, her eyes those of an innocent. The dynamic will that had made her such a danger to the world was gone, all that was left was the mind of a little girl. 'Big badaboom!' said Rachel, remembering the airship crash.

The Doctor came ambling down the path, 'How's the patient today Peri?' he asked.

'Ok I suppose.' she replied.

'No sign of any 'relapses'?' said the Doctor.

'No Doctor she's just as passive as ever. No give-away signs of wanting to destroy the world.'

'There's no need to be flippant Peri.'

'It's just I miss the old Rachel.'

'The Rachel we saw was an amalgam of her potential persona and the Dark Powers.'

'I know but I wish I she could have that without the evil.'

'Hmmm, that's a bit like wanting your cake and eating it I'm afraid Peri.'

'It's getting cold Doctor,' said Peri. 'Let's go have some real cake and some tea.'

'Just what I was thinking.' he said.

Peri pushed hard on the invalid carriage and managed to run over the Doctor's foot and suppressed a smile. 'Let me push her back,' he said 'its clear I'm better at this.'

She happily agreed knowing she'd gotten the better of his big head.

* * *

The Doctor watched the carriage move away taking Rachel to the sanatorium he had chosen. Parsons had agreed to his plan. It seemed to satisfy both his clients, granting management of the estates to her brother yet ensuring a share of the income went to Rachel's care and upkeep. There were a number of clauses of his own devising. Parsons had said he had a devious mind. Possibly this was a compliment. The Doctor cared little, he was himself and walked alone. A Time Lord and a gentleman to boot.

* * *

Peri made her way back through the Tardis to her room. There she lay back on the bed and listened to the barely audible hum of the Tardis. The room was as impersonal as ever but at least it didn't remind her of England in the Summer time. She still hurt deep inside, Grant had given his life for the creature they had known as Rachel. Perhaps she had maintained some form of control over him to the end. Perhaps she had combined the mystery of the Dark Powers and feminine reserve into a seductive gestalt. Perhaps Peri had only represented fun and frivolity to the young Time Lord.

'Whatever', she thought. Now she was stuck with the Doctor, his pompous persona intact and unrepentant. Whatever trials he had been through had not produce humility. Suffering didn't stay with him long. But she could hate the Doctor as well as love him. He was infuriating, arrogant and possessed a random genius. He took her places, they met fascinating people and she would puncture his pride at every opportunity.

Peri looked around the room, in the mirror she saw a strange young woman with cheeks reddened by fresh air and hair held at the back. She almost didn't recognise herself in the long flowing dress, she had become accustomed to. One of Rachel's, she thought miserably. She stood up and quickly undid the back, almost ripping the dozens of tiny buttons. As a few broke and ricocheted off the white Tardis walls she slipped the bodice of her shoulders and stepped out of the mass of linen. The tight underwear went next and finally she stood naked in front of the wardrobe.

Peri looked inside and found a tight top in a dazzling metallic blue and a pair of hot pants. As she pulled them on she tried to imagine the Edwardian gentleman's reaction to her clothes. The colours were neon bright and the cut made no attempt to hide her body away. Modern fabrics, straightforward, light and unencumbering. She could run, jump and kick her way out of anything. She was Perpeguilliam Brown, Peri for short, a time traveller and a modern girl. Anyone who thought different could just fade away...

* * *

Grant left the keys in the ignition of the red Austin Healey and hoped its next owner would enjoy driving it as much as himself. He had just come from Rachel's funeral and still wore a conservative black suit and tie. It was a crisp November evening and he kept the car gloves on.

Night was just falling in the quiet country lane and he used a small flash light to cross the field to the narrow stone trough he remembered as if in a dream. Had it really been over fifty years since he had arrived on this planet? After the airship exploded he had been blown clear, but he had been badly burnt and the Dark Powers tore at the tatters of his mind. In the moment of death he felt the chill tingling of regeneration and awoke a different man. He had stolen some clothes from a farm shed and the locals at Farnsworth had taken him for a vagrant. He had observed the aftermath of the crash from afar, not wishing to add to Peri's pain and confusion. She and the Doctor were a good pairing, although they'd never admit it. It pleased him to see them caring for Rachel and he began to build a new identity for himself, earning down at the garage, enroling as a medical student, specialising in long-term care, until at last he contrived to oversee the institution Rachel had been placed in.

There he could spend his hours caring for her, making sure staff were not cruel or neglectful. It had been an open secret that she was his special ward. Rachel had lived to an old age rarely seen in hospitalised patients. It had been a long investment of time but he was a Time Lord and patience was their greatest tool. She had been his first love, this Earth girl had taught him lessons the dusty corridors of Gallifrey could not start to imagine. She had been a vessel for the Dark Powers but between the Doctor's daring and his sacrifice, she had been freed. He himself appeared to have lost their grip by regenerating although he suspected he would meet them again, but this time as an adversary not their pawn. Without them Rachel had been a quiet child, passive yet beautiful to the end her face untouched by the frowns of life. She had not seen the world she had enjoyed turned upside down by two world wars. She had not seen the modern world encroaching on Farnsworth bit by bit. The horses they had loved had been replaced by motor cars and the airships they had planned had been replaced by noisy aeroplanes.

Now the final chapter had been closed. Her body lay at rest in the Farnsworth chapel cemetery. It had been a small ceremony with only himself and old Burton attending. He had turned out to be a decent executor and had kept the estate running according to Rachel's wishes while satisfying both her brother and the sanitarium bills. He had found the old custom of dropping a handful of earth in the grave strangely satisfying. He felt he had said goodbye. He had done the honourable thing.

Now he stood in a field above the village and could see it's electric lights twinkling clearly in the night air. He had long regained his time knowledge the High Council must have concluded that he had redeemed himself but he no longer felt like one of their number. He could not got back to the study and denial of the Capitol. In front of him was a standing stone. Polished smooth by years of rubbing cattle, they would miss it soon. He gave a mental command and a straight line opened in it's side. The door into his Tardis. He didn't know where he was going and he didn't care anymore. A new life lay ahead of him and Rachel would have wanted him to live it to the full but he would never love again like he had loved her.

There was a sound like wind in the trees or gravel falling onto a sheet of corrugated iron and then there was nothing but the sound of cows lowing in the night.

**Copyright 1999 Allan Toombs**


End file.
